France Arrests a Comedian For His Facebook Comments, Showing the Sham of the West’s “Free Speech” Celebration

Forty-eight hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free expression, France opened a criminal investigation of a controversial French comedian for a Facebook post he wrote about the Charlie Hebdo attack, and then this morning, arrested him for that post on charges of “defending terrorism.” The comedian, Dieudonné (above), previously sought elective office in France on what he called an “anti-Zionist” platform, has had his show banned by numerous government officials in cities throughout France, and has been criminally prosecuted several times before for expressing ideas banned in that country.

The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last name was “Coulibaly”). Expressing that opinion is evidently a crime in the Republic of Liberté, which prides itself on a line of 20th Century intellectuals – from Sartre and Genet to Foucault and Derrida – whose hallmark was leaving no orthodoxy or convention unmolested, no matter how sacred.

Since that glorious “free speech” march, France has reportedly opened 54 criminal cases for “condoning terrorism.” AP reported this morning that “France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism.”

As pernicious as this arrest and related “crackdown” on some speech obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores the utter scam that was this week’s celebration of free speech in the west. The day before the Charlie Hebdo attack, I coincidentally documented the multiple cases in the west – including in the U.S. – where Muslims have been prosecuted and even imprisoned for their political speech. Vanishingly few of this week’s bold free expression mavens have ever uttered a peep of protest about any of those cases – either before the Charlie Hebdo attack or since. That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.

It is certainly true that many of Dieudonné’s views and statements are noxious, although he and his supporters insist that they are “satire” and all in good humor. In that regard, the controversy they provoke is similar to the now-much-beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoons (one French leftist insists the cartoonists were mocking rather than adopting racism and bigotry, but Olivier Cyran, a former writer at the magazine who resigned in 2001, wrote a powerful 2013 letter with ample documentation condemning Charlie Hebdo for descending in the post-9/11 era into full-scale, obsessive anti-Muslim bigotry).

Despite the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of themselves performing his ugly Nazi-evoking arm gesture in “solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested and prosecuted for them. That’s because last week’s celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists (well beyond mourning their horrifically unjust murders) was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support – at least as much.

The vast bulk of the stirring “free speech” tributes over the last week have been little more than an attempt to protect and venerate speech that degrades disfavored groups while rendering off-limits speech that does the same to favored groups, all deceitfully masquerading as lofty principles of liberty. In response to my article containing anti-Jewish cartoons on Monday – which I posted to demonstrate the utter selectivity and inauthenticity of this newfound adoration of offensive speech – I was subjected to endlesscontortions justifying why anti-Muslim speech is perfectly great and noble while anti-Jewish speech is hideously offensive and evil (the most frequently invoked distinction – “Jews are a race/ethnicity while Muslims aren’t” – would come as a huge surprise to the world’s Asian, black, Latino and white Jews, as well as to those who identify as “Muslim” as part of their cultural identity even though they don’t pray five times a day). As always: it’s free speech if it involves ideas I like or attacks groups I dislike, but it’s something different when I’m the one who is offended.

Think about the “defending terrorism” criminal offense for which Dieudonné has been arrested. Should it really be a criminal offense – causing someone to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned – to say something along these lines: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop? If you want “terrorism defenses” like that to be criminally prosecuted (as opposed to societally shunned), how about those who justify, cheer for and glorify the invasion and destruction of Iraq, with its “Shock and Awe” slogan signifying an intent to terrorize the civilian population into submission and its monstrous tactics in Fallujah? Or how about the psychotic calls from a Fox News host, when discussing Muslims radicals, to “kill them ALL.” Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred – other than because the force of law is being used to control political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim world) is done by, rather than to, the west?

For those interested, my comprehensive argument against all “hate speech” laws and other attempts to exploit the law to police political discourse is here. That essay, notably, was written to denounce a proposal by a French minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, to force Twitter to work with the French government to delete tweets which officials like this minister (and future unknown ministers) deem “hateful.” France is about as legitimate a symbol of free expression as Charlie Hebdo, which fired one of its writers in 2009 for a single supposedly anti-Semitic sentence in the midst of publishing an orgy of anti-Muslim (not just anti-Islam) content. This week’s celebration of France – and the gaggle of tyrannical leaders who joined it – had little to do with free speech and much to do with suppressing ideas they dislike while venerating ideas they prefer.

Perhaps the most intellectually corrupted figure in this regard is, unsurprisingly, France’s most celebrated (and easily the world’s most overrated) public intellectual, the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. He demands criminal suppression of anything smacking of anti-Jewish views (he called for Dieudonné’s shows to be banned (“I don’t understand why anyone even sees the need for debate”) and supported the 2009 firing of the Charlie Hebdo writer for a speech offense against Jews), while shamelessly parading around all last week as the Churchillian champion of free expression when it comes to anti-Muslim cartoons.

But that, inevitably, is precisely the goal, and the effect, of laws that criminalize certain ideas and those who support such laws: to codify a system where the views they like are sanctified and the groups to which they belong protected. The views and groups they most dislike – and only them – are fair game for oppression and degradation.

The arrest of this French comedian so soon after the epic Paris free speech march underscores this point more powerfully than anything I could have written about the selectivity and fraud of this week’s “free speech” parade. It also shows – yet again – why those who want to criminalize the ideas they most dislike are at least as dangerous and tyrannical as the ideas they target: at least.

Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images

Correction: This post originally identified Dieudonné as Muslim. That was in error, and the article has been edited to reflect that correction.

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This Muslim woman says Glenn Greenwald is supporting the campaigns by the “honor brigades”.

These are campaigns coordinated by authoritarian Islamic states, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and other conservative Islamic movements, to shame and silence criticism of Islam – including from Muslims like herself – and efforts to reform the worst, most violent and oppressive aspects of the religion.

I would not quite subscribe to the mindset of much dissimilar Plato, Hoover and Pope Francis; but I can see as part of our (“Westerners'”) collective blind spots how we insist in portraying the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks against a satirical magazine

// __ Vigils held around the world after Paris terror attack:
~
telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11331836/Je-Suis-Charlie-Vigils-held-around-the-world-after-Paris-terror-attack-in-pics.html
~
Our lack of empathy towards other people and our typically Western “our sh!t smells better than yours” (and when in doubt our guns will prove us right) kind of self-centeredness, doesn’t let us see that, as Plato, Hoover and Pope Francis clearly understand there is “freedom of speech” and then there is “freedom of speech”, there definitely is more to it than satire and “freedom of speech”.

And, of course, not “all of us”/Westerners think the same. U.S. high ranking artists and politicians such as icon Tony Bennett and NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg in a “stop the b#llsh!t already” manner have tried to burst the bubble that the media carefully guards about anything relating to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, especially when it comes to how we should think about it:

// __ Tony Bennett apologises (sort of) as he clarifies his remarks blaming the U.S. for 9/11 attacks

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039506/Tony-Bennett-apologizes-sort-9-11-remarks.html
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In a sense many of our new, unexpected incidents are unintended consequences of “globalization”. Charlie Hebdo is not anymore a regional satirical magazine feeding the (peculiarly Universal) French anarchism, novel prize winner British-Indian Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses are definitely about more than poetry and, no, not the kind Ayatollah Khomeini would like …

“Forty-eight hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free expression…” No, Glenn. The inspiration for that massive presence in the streets of Paris was a whole lot more than a call for “free expression,” though that too was part of it of course. It’s impossible to reduce what brought people out to a single banner, but among the many elements motivating this massive turn-out, I’d say simple solidarity with the murdered victims and a wish to express our sadness – something like laying flowers on a place where a violent crime has been committed – were as important as anything else. PS. He may have began his career as one, but the hysterical anti-Semitic activist Dieudonné hasn’t been anything you might call a “comedian” in years.

That is why Plato (obsessing over virtues and our conscious pursuit of them) in his crappy, classist model state societies ruled by “Philosopher-Kings” was very careful about prescribing what was considered kosher, politically correct art and “the role of artists” “in order not to ‘corrupt’ minds” and also why FBI director (for 37 years, through 6 U.S. presidents until his death) J. Edgar Hoover as part of his personal obsession with Chaplin (who believed (as I do) comedians are above politicians) directly questioned him on scenes in which someone kicks a police officer’s butt while arriving in Ellis Island right after showing a picture of the statute of Liberty and took upon himself smearing Chaplin’s public image in all kinds of ways ranging from accusing him of being a Jew (as a way of rationalizing why he was some “commie” (Yes, Chaplin was accused of being a communist, which in the days would amount to accusing someone of being a “terrorist”!)) to fabricating child abuse cases against him which even though proven bogus on physical grounds were enough “to make him pay someone else’s way” … until he was eventually expelled from the U.S.

Even Pope Francis making use of his hard-won celebrity status has said that “freedom of speech has its limits”

I would not quite subscribe to the mindset of much dissimilar Plato, Hoover and Pope Francis; but I can see as part of our (“Westerners'”) collective blind spots how we insist in portraying the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks against a satirical magazine

// __ Vigils held around the world after Paris terror attack:
~
telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11331836/Je-Suis-Charlie-Vigils-held-around-the-world-after-Paris-terror-attack-in-pics.html
~
Our lack of empathy towards other people and our typically Western “our sh!t smells better than yours” (and when in doubt our guns will prove us right) kind of self-centeredness, doesn’t let us see that, as Plato, Hoover and Pope Francis clearly understand: there is “freedom of speech” and then there is “freedom of speech”, there definitely is more to it than satire and “freedom of speech”.

And, of course, not “all of us”/Westerners think the same. U.S. high ranking artists and politicians such as icon Tony Bennett and NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg in a “stop the b#llsh!t already” manner have tried to burst the bubble that the media carefully guards about anything relating to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, especially when it comes to how we should think about it:

// __ Tony Bennett apologises (sort of) as he clarifies his remarks blaming the U.S. for 9/11 attacks

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039506/Tony-Bennett-apologizes-sort-9-11-remarks.html
~
In a sense many of our new, unexpected incidents are unintended consequences of “globalization”. Charlie Hebdo is not anymore a regional satirical magazine feeding the (peculiarly Universal) French anarchism, novel prize winner British-Indian Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses are definitely about more than poetry and, no, not the kind Ayatollah Khomeini would like …

We all live now like rough rooming siblings and IMO we will have to learn to live like that and accept it, even like it at some point, and see it as something entirely natural.

Jiddu Krishnamurti said: “When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”

I think what we really should eventually understand, is that there is nothing wrong or “violent” with being what you are in the same sense that there is absolutely nothing wrong or “violent” with other people being (what they are). As part of our personal being/becoming, sein/werden intrinsic vital dynamic we are all tacitly conditioned and exposed to some extent by our viable options and/or choices (at times not to cast our votes or die or do) to various realities throughout our lives which will pretty much personally conform who each of us is. As they say: “it is not what it is, but how you take it, what you make of it”. In my case I have been “culturally” exposed to my mother (people laugh when they hear me say that), to growing up as part of a family of high profile political dissidents, artists/musicians, anarchists in a police state (Cuba of the 60’s), having chosen to study Physical Sciences and going to school in Germany, and having lived in the U.S. for more two decades. We tend to illusively make a big deal about who we are/how we see ourselves, when in fact your being, say Sudanese, Bangladeshi, Mexican, Scottish or all those things you may be is basically determined by the fact that your mother happened to give birth to you in a certain place at a certain time … yet there is always more to it which one does and is for one self.

We are critically failing to see a (not that) subtle yet very important aspect of political satire, which also speaks tones about our own (Westerners’) arrogance. What on earth makes us think that we should do them the favor of making jokes for/about themselves? Notice, how on all previous cases of political satire we are cracking jokes about ourselves (who could possibly do it better?). What makes us believe that Muslim people are not sensitive enough to see what is wrong with their own rulers and question them satirically or otherwise?

The vertically incisive and visceral outrage sparked in Muslim countries by the “art as social activism” happenings of Egyptian Aliaa Magda Elmahdy (????? ????? ??????)

calling for men to submit images of themselves wearing veils “in an attempt to create awareness over hypocritical attitudes” and releasing a picture of herself menstruating on the flag of ISIS wearing only shoes, while another woman defecated on it

timesofisrael.com/egypt-feminist-defecates-on-is-flag-in-the-nude/

couldn’t be matched by Charlie Hebdo, Hollywood or FEMEN.

As the gringo maxim goes: “mind your business!” and we very much should! Moreover, Gandhi said to his fellow countrymen while fighting the (external) evils of the British occupation not to forget their own internal evils (the caste system, corruption, religion intolerance …) in fact, he very much saw both evils as connected, complementing each other, part of the same.

We all tend to insist on taking our own pictures from our good sides while making sure we take those of others from their worst possible side and rationalize anything that doesn’t fit well that principle. We prominently show ourselves awarding Malala a novel prize without thinking of the many Malalas (girls and boys in Muslim and many other countries) we have killed with our bombings and the many more Malalas working under subhuman conditions so that “we live our way”

// __ Gap Unveils New ‘For Kids By Kids’ Clothing Line
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youtube.com/watch?v=OXb3dzNLebk
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The British love to dangle the historical importance of their Royal Society on our faces and want for us to see them all as Michael Faraday’s, Charles Darwin’s, John Lennon’s, Princess Diana’s … clones. Richard Feynman’s Tips on Physics preface relates the following apparently “enlightening” and “self-evident” story:

“At a lonely border post high on te Himalayan frontier, Ramaswamy Balasubramanian peered through his binoculars at the People’s Liberation Army soliders stationed in Tibet — who were peering through their scopes back at him. Tensions between India and China had been high for several years since 1962, when the two countries traded shots across their disputed border. The PLA soldiers, knowing they were being watched, taunted Balasubramanian and his fellow Indian soldirs by shaking, defiantly, high in the air their pocket-sized, bright-red copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao — better known in the West as ‘Mao’s Little Red Book’ Balasubramanian, then a conscript studying physics in his spare time, soon grew tired of these taunts. So one day, he came to his observation post prepared with a suitable rejoinder. As soon as the PLA soldiers started waving Mao’s Lettle Red Book in the air again, he and two fellow Indian soldiers picked up and held aloft the three, big, bright-red volumes of The Feynman Lectures on Physics … Now, twenty years later, whose red books are still being read?” From the foreword of Feynmans’s Tips on Physics”.

What they don’t tell you is that Richard Feynman even though a junior physicist at the time (who was persuaded to join this effort to build “‘the’ bomb” before Nazi Germany developed their own) was deeply depressed and radically changed his view of Physics and everything as well as how he took his moral responsibility after seeing “the fruit of his (and many other people’s) work”.

// __ Feynman on his role in the Manhattan Project and its aftermath
~
youtube.com/watch?v=6no328q_VGQ
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Such prominent U.S. medical institutions as the Presbyterian Hospital in NYC were sending blood anticoagulant injections to be administered to people in death row (among them political dissidents) in China, which organs were being harvested for transplant in U.S. hospitals (as reported (if very marginally) even in the US). Chinese execution officers didn’t even care about removing the senders from packages which was what led a reporter to investigate what was going on. The only official statement of that institution (Hippocratic indeed!) was that: “Physicians’ business is to take care of their patients”. Yes, I know, I know that must be a lie because a freedom-loving Christian government/people would never do such things that is why such stories never see the light of day.

and in a “Red Terror”, “popular justice” way executed without trials thousands of people and while incriminating artists, they didn’t respect that they may have been compelled by their muses to exercise their “freedom of speech/expression” …

Why the -constant- double standard? Is it part of our Christian “… as we forgive ‘those’ who sin against us”? Now as anyone could see “those”, “them”, “the other” are the ones “who sin against us” among many other aspects relating to sins, reminding us of our own.

which killed 290 people “by mistake” (yeah, right!). Now, about that “mistake”, the U.S. Navy are not angry Eastern Ukrainian separatists they have the technology to monitor a fly farting on the moon, that plane was flying on its schedule its usual trajectory, (it was even within Iranian airspace when it was shot down!) and it never ever did any aggressive move towards the U.S. military in any way (who seemed to have “gone fishing” to those waters. Do Iranian military vessels “go fishing” right in front of U.S. coasts?). However, compare the technicalities of that incident with the plane downed by pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine. They couldn’t stop posting pictures everywhere and pointing fingers at Putin and his family. Even though it was very clear that Kiev actually caused that accident for political capital
~
// __ US intelligence: rebels likely shot down MH17 ‘by mistake’ – as it happened
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theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/22/mh17-eu-foreign-ministers-mh17-sanctions-russia-live-updates
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// __ German TV. 10.4.14. Who were the Maidan snipers? Ukraine.
~
youtube.com/watch?v=zDPJ-ucnyPU&hd=1
~
very well knowing pro-Russian separatist would not be able to notice it wasn’t theirs and allowing the plane through its air space exactly over the area of intense fighting after making their own planes fly higher and higher …

Why is that? Because 290 “ragheads” were just killed “by mistake”? Because those types of incidents cannot be used against pro-Russia Putin?

The thing is that to us in the West, by courtesy of our “responsible” media outlets, those “mistakes” don’t even factually happen or mean anything.

Has anything changed with “freedom of speech” “responsible” media outlets in the U.S. (and extensively Western media conglomerates)? They, as machines designed for manipulation and brainwashing constantly reinventing themselves as technology opens new venues to them, are more critical to govern “We the people” than the NSA and even political institutions themselves. They are very selective about what and how they present and frame what happens out there, in order to keep people’s minds fenced and “happy”. When they present abuses and terrorism by the USG and their “freedom-loving” followers they do it as if they were “in response to”, a “closed case of justice prevailing over ‘evil'”, “serving the ‘greater good'” … (TM), but when it is about terrorism not sponsored by the USG, we already know how stories go. They can’t quite control reality, but its perception is so easily controllable!!!

“embedded” reporters, who couldn’t notice any of it or do any Math. Manning, however, is serving a 35 year sentence for doing their work:

Two days ago I submitted a comment that challenged the Charlie Hebdo / Dieudonné equivalence (or near equivalence) argument from a perspective that I have not seen anywhere else in the media / blogosphere. (I’d examined all the comments mentioning Dieudonné in this thread to see if the point had already been made.)

In a subsequent comment I called attention to an episode involving the Charlie Hebdo writer Maurice Sinet who, as GG reports, had been fired in 2009 for a single supposedly anti-Semitic sentence (an episode which, again I have not seen mentioned in recent discussions that point out that firing **).

If GG and others don’t find my offerings worth acknowledgement, or the effort to rebut, c’est la vie, as they say.

But I didn’t expect my comments to be held up for at least a full day (perhaps two) causing them to first and only appear well under a bunch of screens’ worth of subsequent comments.. on a thread where many consecutive comments are separated by less than 20 minutes.. on an article championing unfettered you-know-what.

I know I shouldn’t presume too much — technical glitches, busy moderators and all — and I know that in GG’s living room, GG makes the rules. Still, I have to wonder if that very living room contains an odor reminiscent of Stalinism.

—

** Different, but, still interesting material about the Sinet firing from people actually attuned to the French scene by Pierrick P. here and by Constance here.

That free speech is more or less a mirage in those western countries that most loudly try to stuff the its virtues down the throats of those who do not appreciate some of our not-allowed-to-be-questioned dogma is good to be reminded of in these days when the brainwashing machine is at full-throttle.

It is challenging in this context to know any means by which any fair-minded disallowance of some speech can possibly be effectuated. Speech that works in the favor of the powerful is more than allowed; it is promoted. Speech that works against the powerful is silenced or smeared. To put a law in place is to look to those who have caused the problem to solve it — it’s like putting the wolf in charge of the hen house.

As someone who has the fate of being one of the hens, the only useful response is to keep in mind the nature of those who run the place.

When the people enforcing the laws are self-serving, the result of any law (regardless of the words it is written with) will be to serve what those same people see as their interests.

“…Should it really be a criminal offense – causing someone to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned – to say something along these lines: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop?…”

Uh, yes absolutely. Why would even ask such a stupid, brainless question?

Muslims of the world saw the leaders of the West(controlled by America) march against Islam in Paris. They believed that it was purely a racist hatred march against Islamic culture. They believe that it showed the power of the Zionists. This is why President Obama(puppet master) did not join in. The question is: Why are these leaders provoking the Muslims? Their economies are going into deep recession, so this ethnic strife is to take people’s mind off of the economy. They are using Nazi tactics, since they are the new Nazis. GET OUT OF THE EU.

Generally and, in the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack and similar incidents, very specifically speaking, those “cartoonists” making fun of a people/religion are a very essential part of the brainwashing people systematically get in order to justify the abusive engagement and genocidal extermination of “rag heads” (as Muslims are semi-officially referred to by the USG)

Basically, we Westerners see it as some “freedom of speech” vs. “those savage crazy ‘terrorist’ assassins … (TM)” thing

Even “freedom of speech” “responsible” media outlets effectively admit they are part of some farcical bs, when they accept such a joke as “embedded” reporters and refuse to publish anything -truly- questioning daddy government (as with Snowden revelations) or involving the powers that be. They are very selective about what and how they present and frame what happens out there in order to keep people’s minds fenced and “happy”. For example, when they present abuses and terrorism by the USG and their “freedom-loving” friends they present it as if they were “in response to”, a “closed case of justice prevailing over evil”, “serving the ‘greater good'” … (TM), but when it is about terrorism not sponsored by the USG, we already know how stories go. They can’t quite control reality, but its perception is so easily controllable!!!

Take a history book or one of those “serious”, “responsible” newspapers in the U.S. and try to make sense of what they are saying (you may at times go LOL). If you prorate the figures on a social scale you will see that the USG and their “freedom-loving” fiefdoms have greatly surpassed the genocidal ratio of Nazi Germany during WWII, however not a single “freedom of speech” media outlet questions any of this either factually or morally. They are all part of the same farcical “freedom of speech” theatrical bs

Gringos can’t help but find mass obedience shows in North Korea and prayer calls by Muslim people downright stupid and very disrespecting to what they have been conditioned to see as “personal individuality”, “personal freedom of choice”, … but then they spend watching TV one third of their waking time of their entire lives and they fail to see anything wrong with that and any relationships with those mass belief demonstrations. That clearly shows how effective is the work of those “cartoonists” and “freedom of speech” media outlets.

Amazing article! Real mind opening. I truly believe that the way to true world peace is by identifying the contradictions and hypocrisies. Glenn demonstrates that he is a true champion of free speech.

I did more research on Dieudonne and I was impressed with his courage and brilliance of daring to “go there”. It is clear to me that he purposefully pushes the envelope in order to demonstrate the farce/illusion of “free speech”. I believe that most artist quickly figure out what they are allowed to say or not say and they censor themselves… In my search I found an excellent video to further demonstrate the double standard in France: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-3cmEOZ02w

Glenn, you’re are making an unsupported and wrong assumption in this passage, just because it supports your point:

“Think about the “defending terrorism” criminal offense for which Dieudonné has been arrested. Should it really be a criminal offense – causing someone to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned – to say something along these lines: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop?”

What Dieudonne was trying to say when he wrote ““Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” he was trying to say that he feels like a terrorist because he has been treated like public enemy number 1 in France for making controversial jokes for many years. He said so himself. He certainly wasn’t trying to say “something along the lines of: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop?” He wrote that post right after going to the massive march in France against extremism, I don’t see how you could prove that he actually meant what you say he meant with his post.

Of course it helps your point better to take his remarks as a justification of terrorism rather than as a personal feeling of disgruntle with the french government, because you want to show that the value of free speech in democratic societies is so important that even the most radical and most unpopular of opinions, such as one that defends or justifies terrorism (Muslim-Islamist terrorism that is), should be allowed to be expressed freely. But you shouldn’t go as far as making unsupported assumptions to illustrate your point. It is a journalistic mistake.

Nonetheless, the fact that the French government arrested him for saying something that they took to be a defense and a justification of terrorism, when it was not, does raise serious problems with the way these type of hate speech banning policies work. It shows how unreliable and how dangerous these policies are because it vests too much power on authorities to define people’s remarks as they please, and shows how likely is this power to be abused to ban opinions, or people, that these authorities don’t like.

“What Dieudonne was trying to say when he wrote ““Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” he was trying to say that he feels like a terrorist because he has been treated like public enemy number 1 in France for making controversial jokes for many years. He said so himself. He certainly wasn’t trying to say “something along the lines of: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop?” ”

To answer your first question: even if Dieudonne had meant what Glenn thought he meant with the facebook post, Glenn really didn’t offer any evidence to support his interprfetation of Dieudonne’s message. He chose that interpretation for pure convenience, not for accuracy. Furthermore, it’s not only that Glenn didn’t show evidence, it’s that it is really unlikely that his interpretation of Dieudonne’s post is accurate. First reason for the unlikeliness of Glenn’s interpretation of the post I already mentioned: Dieudonne went to a march agaisnt extremism right before posting that on fb. I don’t know, maybe its just me, but a guy that goes to a march against extremism probably wouldn’t want to say anything to defend extremism or justify it. Second reason, the whole semantics of the post indicate that he wanted to say that he felt like Charlie Coulibaly, in other words, that he felt like a terrorist — as a way to mock the french government for how they treated him — not that he actually felt sympathy for the shooters. He said, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly, not #JeSuisCharlieCoulibaly. And lastly, to put this in the coffin, this post in Dieudonne’s facebook wall following his arrest: “I’m being seeing as a Charlie Coulibaly, when I’m no different than Charlie Hebdo, for a year I’m treated like public enemy number 1, when I only sought to make laughs”

And now the second question: why would he delete the controversial post following his arrest? Maybe because a lot of people, including the french government and Glenn Greenwald, are taking his post to mean a completely different thing that what he actually meant.

“even if Dieudonne had meant what Glenn thought he meant with the facebook post, Glenn really didn’t offer any evidence to support his interprfetation of Dieudonne’s message. He chose that interpretation for pure convenience, not for accuracy. Furthermore, it’s not only that Glenn didn’t show evidence, it’s that it is really unlikely that his interpretation of Dieudonne’s post is accurate.”

GG didn’t make any personal interpretation as to the meaning of Dieudonné’s post. He reported what the French investigators concluded :

“The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last name was “Coulibaly”). Expressing that opinion is evidently a crime in the Republic of Liberté, which prides itself on a line of 20th Century intellectuals – from Sartre and Genet to Foucault and Derrida – whose hallmark was leaving no orthodoxy or convention unmolested, no matter how sacred.”

As for my questions :

a/ remains unanswered : what if he had indeed meant “Half of me is feeling sympathy for a terrorist”. Did he, i.y.o., have to be arrested in that case ?

b/ He’s not a rookie in the ‘provocation business’, far from it. He knew what he was doing, and which reactions to expect. If he wanted to make a point, he shouldn’t have deleted his post.

Oh, I see what you’re getting at with the first question. Of course he shouldn’t be arrested if he had meant to say something along the lines of “I feel sympathy for a terrorist, this attack is minuscule in proportion to what France and its allies have done to Muslim countries in the past”, like a lot of the other 54 people who were arrested that day actually did. But the fact is that he didn’t mean to show sympathy for a terrorist nor the attacks on France. The fact that Dieudonne got arrested when he was not even trying to defend terrorism raises different problems with and concerns about these hate speech banning policies than what Glenn mentioned in the article. If Dieudonne had meant to “defend terrorism” and got arrested because of it, then the problem with the hate speech banning policies in this case is what Glenn talks about in this article: that the policies will only go after unpopular opinions that the authorities do not agree with. But because Dieudonne did not mean to defend terrorism and still got arrested for it, the problem with the hate speech banning policies in this case is that they are incredibly susceptible to misinterpretation — accidental or intentional — and therefore, are ineffective at actually disseminating between “acceptable” and “awful” opinions. So even someone with not such a radical opinion would be liable to get arrested with the use of these policies. But yes, I take your point about how Glenn didn’t make any personal interpretation in his article and that he only used the French government’s interpretation of the post as a means to say “even if Dieudonne had meant to defend terrorism, his arrest wouldn’t be justifiable”. It just seemed to me that the article didn’t make that distinction between what the French government interpreted Dieudonne’s post to mean, and what he actually meant.

B) Yes he is not a rookie in the business, correct me if I’m wrong but while he had been in trouble with the authorities before — got fined for “hate speech”, got his shows taken down for anti antisemitism, and so on — this was the first time that he was arrested for something that he said. Scratch that: for something that he didn’t even mean to say. Maybe he didn’t want to get arrested to be able to keep working freely on his comedy, or maybe he actually didn’t want people to think that he was sympathizing with the attacks.

Yes, Glenn, but the west is considerably more tolerant than the Muslim countries. Apparently you have not heard about the flogging of a citizen of Saudi Arabia who dared started a blog criticizing his government. So Muslim countries do not believe in any dissenting speech at all, as opposed to the west. If Muslims do not like western culture, no one is forcing them to live in it.

Yes, I’m also aware that (for example) the US imprisons more people than anywhere else in the world, and that it imprisons a higher proportion of blacks than South Africa did during the height of apartheid. What I said was that Saudi Arabia’s particular legal malaise is not typical of Islamic nations any more than America’s characteristics define the whole of the West. I can list some more of the US’s peculiar failings, if you like, and illustrate some of the related but perhaps lesser abuses of the allied nations, too, but I see no purpose in following your lead by dwelling on something merely tangential to the point.

Come to think of it, perhaps there is after all a purpose in the tangential, for if you (like Bob Jones below) wish to play the extrapolation game, perhaps it can be illustrative:

The original issue was Saudi Arabia punishing a blogger, and your extrapolation from the persecution of homosexuals – who are (broadly speaking) unjustly incriminated – is that therefore all Muslim rule is as repressive as under the rule House of Saud. This (although Iran is horrific, too, for example) is not an accurate extrapolation since Saudi Arabia is peculiarly brutal and oppressive in countless more ways than the average Muslim country – and this despite being one of our leading allies in the region.

Now although the US has an appalling record of late regarding its treatment of reporters*, the sensible purpose here is obviously not to compare the Muslim world with the West, but to avoid typifying the two cultures by the worst of both.

To illustrate, the Western nations allied with the US all racially profile, disproportionately monitor and otherwise persecute Muslims, and Britain, Canada etc. join in the butchering and more indiscriminate-than-generally-known airstrikes in the middle east, but the US stands alone in the field of the execution of indefinite detention, rendition, torture and drone strikes and so on.

While Iran is similar to Saudi Arabia in its cruelties, just so Israel is very similar to the US in its vicious and disproportionate assaults on Palestine; and while other Western nations, as noted, participate in the worldwide bulk-but-distinctly-racially-profiling surveillance state structure, the House of Saud AND the government of the US remain far and above the very worst faces of their respective cultures.

What you fail to realize is that you cannot name ONE country with the perfect judicial system. As a matter of fact, tell me where that country is so I can move there. You and sometimes Mr Greenwald are inclined to equate the US justice and social systems with those of Saudi Arabia because the US judicial system does not meet your level of perfection. This is in my opinion a naive maneuver from you and a cynical one from Mr Greenwald. If you are against the death penalty, drone strikes, military spending etc..you can convince the people to change those policies in the US. You can bash policymakers like you and Mr Greenwald do every day in the US. Now please let us know whether it is allowed to challenge the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iran, Bahrain, Brunei? That is the difference that you fail to realize and that Mr Greenwald has successfully blurred among his readers.

According to the Amnesty International report on reported executions between 2007 and 2013 where China tops the list, the number 2 spot goes to Iran (2,032) well ahead of number 3 Saudi Arabia (502) and number 4 Iraq (425). Then you have the US with 259, followed by Yemen with 165…

“None of which changes my point about the US’s sordid death penalty, extrajudicial killing, torture, etc. being atypical for the West.”” – Cindy

Bob Jones makes an important distinction regarding death penalty/executions being far more prevalent in other nation states around the world when compared to the United States. That the US has more of its citizens imprisoned per capita (at least according to official reports) is a stark reminder that killing someone isn’t the only way to silence an individual – and certainly isn’t if there is a profit to made – as has become even more the case in the United States since it has increased the corporatization & privatization of incarceration.

In other words, the government/corporate prison industrial complex can make money off of the prisoners only while they are still alive and inside. Releasing or killing prisoners is bad for US federal and state governments and bad for this business model. Federal and state prison workers lose out in this scenario, as do the for-profit prison corporations.

Which leads to the idea that extrajudicial killing is almost certainly just as ubiquitous as torture on our the planet. The United States does not seem to be unique here, either, although, like incarceration and torture, the US kills others extra-judicially with a distinct capitalist-flair and a jingoistic attitude – all while blatantly mocking international law. Most other nations at least try to shy away from the limelight – the US is, for all intents and purposes trying to, if not institutionalize, at least to decriminalize all of these acts – and so far it’s succeeding.

A recent Amnesty International Report Specifically on Torture outlines the horrifying ubiquity of torture worldwide. It specifically underscores that torture is a global crisis.

* Amnesty International has reported on torture or other ill-treatment in 141 countries over the past five years.

* New global survey of more than 21,000 people in 21 countries across every continent reveals fear of torture exists in all these countries.

* Nearly half of respondents fear torture if taken into custody.

* More than 80% want strong laws to protect them from torture.

* More than a third believe torture can be justified.

“Woe to a nation which, being more civilized, is still led by ancient atrocious customs! “Why should we change our jurisprudence?” say we. “Europe is indebted to us for cooks, tailors, and wig-makers; therefore, our laws are good.” – Voltaire

You will see that the US isn’t really on a high ground when compared to Somalia or even North Korea even while considering “freedom-loving” to be worst than “freedom-hating” executions.

Also, in order for China to keep the #1 place there must have been more than 36,000 executions. I wonder how many of them were political dissidents, which organs were being harvested for consumption in US hospitals as has been reported (if very marginally) even in the US. Such prominent U.S. medical institutions as the Presbyterian Hospital in NYC were sending blood anticoagulant injections to be administered to people in death row and they didn’t even care about removing the senders from packages which was what led a reporter to investigate what was going on. Yes, I know, I know that must be a lie because a freedom-loving Christian government/people would never do such things …

No, of course, the US is by no means on the high ground in this regard. Duh… The point of my reference to the Amnesty International report was to disprove Cindy’s bizarre contention that “Saudi Arabia’s legal malaise is not typical of Muslim countries.” The more complete list that you provided further proves my point: 6 out of the top 10 countries in reported executions are Muslim ones.

Just because Muslim countries are intolerant is no reason to think it’s fine that we in the West degrade our free speech principals? Right? The goal of liberal, western democracy is not to be just a smidgen better than the worst places on earth; it’s to be fair, open, and just regardless of what others might do.

I personally was shocked by the arrest of Dieudonné, especially given the context of the “free speech” march, and I totally agree with Greenwald: if speech is free, then it’s free. Any exceptions means it’s not.

.. Charlie Hebdo, which fired one of its writers in 2009 for a single supposedly anti-Semitic sentence in the midst of publishing an orgy of anti-Muslim (not just anti-Islam) content.

People are trying to make a lot of hay from that firing of Maurice Sinet (aka Siné). Hypocrisy!

The CH editors included lots of “poke the Orthodox Jews” and “poke the Zionists” material, in addition to “poke the fundamentalist Muslims”; this is all very well documented. And yes, the Olivier Cyran letter does indicate the proportions changed after 9/11. Well, a lot of things changed after 9/11.

But the firing resulted from Siné’s attempt to “poke” a high born political prince for marrying Jewish money“. The editors did not want their magazine to go there. Hypocrisy? Not sure.

Now, I’m not that brilliant, but this was easy to find:

.. 1982 radio interview, shortly after a terrorist attack on Jews in central Paris, in which the cartoonist said: ‘Yes, I am anti-Semitic and I am not scared to admit it… I want all Jews to live in fear, unless they are pro-Palestinian. Let them die.’ Siné later apologised.

On the suppression of Dieudonné generally, and the notion that differential treatment of Dieudonné & Charlie Hebdo is a slam dunk case of hypocrisy:

Muslims and Jews in France navigate a society as minorities knowing that some of those around them (or at least parents thereof) had been active, willing participants in acts of physical destruction against members of their minority communities.

Consider a an entertainer whose show featured prominently, sweaty, leering, jeering remarks that conveyed that accounts of organized killing that took place in Algeria or Morocco in (nearly) living memory, were — ha-ha, tee-hee — contrived or overblown, and, that this entertainment was clearly appealing to, providing delight to, frustrated, disaffected white nationalists.

The French authorities, I believe, wouldn’t have it. And with considerable justification.

So, Glen Greenwald, rethink. Everyone (maybe excepting a few crank libertarians) accepts some notion of limits. We don’t argue about allowing sex-with-cadaver magazines at the supermarket (though there would be buyers).

As this article points out, Charlie Hebdo had done satire criticizing and mocking Isreal’s oppression of the Palastinians. And the French government’s racist policies. Listening too Glen Greenwald and Jeremy Skahill you would think they were Fox news commentators

What really & first of all is out of place in our times, are the cartoons with Muslims as subject. Since decades they are waged wars on; massacres, torture & the destruction of the basis of their existence are inflicted on them. In Palestine we witness a slow genocide.

As to the one cartoon alluding to the torture practices, they offend the victims anew. Torture & especially the pervert torture is humiliating & it is intended so; everything should be done to protect the victims. Charlie hebdo could have used Cheney or Brennan for this cartoon. The cartoons are not only a blatant affront but also unintelligent. The latest edition of charlie hebdo is just a new provocation.

Dieudonné’s arrest shows once again the malevolence & distortion of the people who are ruling us.

Greenwald doesn’t understand why Holocaust denial and such – Dieudonné’s bread and butter – is a crime in France and other parts of Europe. Greenwald means to ignore 20th century European history and decries the damn French for not doing the same. Greenwald doesn’t see the difference between mocking religious figures who may or may not have lived a very long time ago and – Dieudonné’s schtick – attacks on Jews coupled with the contention that 6 million of them were not in fact murdered by the Nazis. Greenwald’s anti-Semitic cartoons were just that – anti-Semitic as opposed to blasphemous – and he really doesn’t see the difference? A true believer, he is, and so desperate to cut off his nose to spite his face that he happily brings succor the enemies of reason and progress. Oh, they love him now over at the white supremicist “Occidental Dissident” website as well they should: “Glenn Greenwald might be a homosexual Jew, but I love the guy.” Of course you do, Hoss – that homosexual Jew is fighting your fight these days. Greenwald calls Dieudonné a “comedian” here. He started out as one, but for quite some time now he’s essentially a hysterical anti-Semitic activist who’s been deluding the brain-defficient followers making him rich (sound like Ron Paul?) with one of the oldest lies in the book. His shows are political rallies more than anything else, and his obsession with Jews ended up drawing him into Front National circles and making that movement’s historical leader Jean-Marie Le Pen the godfather of one of his daughters. With people like Greenwald’s going all Voltaire on him, Dieudonné knows there’s hope, knows there’s a “progressive” true-believing sucker born every minute who will jump to his defense with the kind of specious reasoning Greenwald’s giving us. I’m reminded of the the evangelicals ever desperate to save America from baby-killers and homosexuality – that hard-core, 1 or 2 issue hysteria not matter what damage is caused is postively Greenwaldian. He has bent over backwards so far, twisted logic to such an extent that with friends like that, the left certainly doesn’t need any enemies… Orwell would have had a grand old time with him.

So you really think then that Dieudonné should rightfully have been arrested for a mere “tweet?” Frankly, if what you say is right, then I don’t like the guy either. But once you support arresting people for mere tweets, then you start down a very slippery, dangerous slope. That’s why free speech has to be absolute, no matter how awful. Because otherwise, no speech is free.

You should double-check your figure. The 6 millions figure, first off, comes long before WWII. (do some research). And then with legitimate historical revisionism, based on more accurate data, the Polish government changed the number of Jews killed at Auschwitz from 4 million, to 1.1 million. So dont continue to parrot the same the number. This is Not to diminish the horror and incomprehensible injustice, those are get scapegoated as a means to launch wars went through, (and still go through today) -but they were attacked, historically, for some of the same reasons Muslims are being scapegoated today: non-assimilation. We do know that 20 million Russians died during World War II, making up the largest demographic of any nation, slaughtered by the Nazis. (who btw, were a product of transnational corporations, Wall St banks, -aka, the status quo).

There is a huge difference between speech, however obnoxious, which is critical of or even hateful, toward a group, religion or country, and speech which, on its face, appears to support violence or other unlawful acts, against members of that group, religion or country. The latter may not really be “speech”, but may be more in the nature of a verbal act, which, at the very least, ought to be investigated. This is especially true when the “speech” appears to be directed toward people or groups which have recently committed serious acts of violence.

In addition, I don’t believe any nation, however committed to free speech, is required to sit quietly and do nothing while sympathizers of a violent group issue broadsides which seem to encourage the murder and mayhem we have been seeing in Europe recently and in France, in particular. Early in the American Civil War,a congressman from Ohio went around making speeches in support of the secessionists. President Lincoln had the man arrested and suspended “habeas corpus”, even though he had no legal right to do so; he subsequently ignored an order by the Chief Justice to free him. Congress did not finally approve suspension of “habeas corpus” until 1863. But, given the circumstances, who can say that Lincoln was wrong? As another Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, who also served as a prosecutor at the Nuremburg war crimes trials, said, “The law is not a mutual suicide pact.” I think he got it exactly right.

When faced with adversity, he completely abandoned all the principles on which the republic was founded. I believe this follows a universal human pattern – ethics are a luxury which can be indulged when one is comfortably in control of the situation. But fundamentally their purpose is to make one feel better about oneself – to aspire to nobility by pretending to be noble.

But principles should always pre-empted by the imperative of survival.

Brilliant, as usual. One thought you might consider is this. There’s ample evidence that media figures are not critiquing the Muslim religion, but are actually simply attacking Arabs for their religion. No one is suggesting an American athlete who converts to the Muslim faith is suddenly a danger to commit terrorist acts. What they’re really talking about are Arabs from the Middle East region. It’s straight up racism.

The law in France that criminalizes certain remarks about the Holocaust is called the Gayssot Act, after its sponsor. As far as I can see, (some) Muslims in France merely resorted to these murders as perhaps the most-effective means available to them to appeal for THEIR OWN Gayssot Act.

After the Muslims get THEIR Gayssot protecting the Prophet, some other group will want one for their favorite prophet/mythology. Maybe THEY’ll murder 12 people, maybe they’ll murder less, maybe more.

The POINT is to get a Gayssot Act to keep public discussion agreeable for everyone, all the time. Lock ‘n’ load! We gonna get US a Gayssot!

The truth is that Greenwald is a Nazi sympathiser. He defended white supremacists in court, he responded to the attacks by printing reams of anti-Semitic hatred, and now he praises another bigot. Neither of them face being murdered for what they do. Personally I’m starting to understand how the Americans felt after 9/11. Je Suis Charlie Maintenant!

Would you then agree on the murder of Muslims or Jewish in tne name of freedom of speech? You seem to ignore that Dieudonné has a well known anti sionist activist. The reason for his arrest is the apology of violence and terrorism. What has that got to do with freedom of press and speech ? This is exactly what we all have to be careful of : not playing the game of Islamists who want to raise people and communities against each other in Europe. We have to be responsable more than ever for what we say and write. I would be so pleased if one kept a better sense of judgment and get the bigger picture of all this. And beware of all this shit on the net !

Say what? The Quenelle (English: dumpling or sometimes penis) gesture is not in any way similar to the Nazi heil Hitler type salute. Any hand gesture can be made into a heil hitler salute if you change the position of your hands.

Crazy reasoning like the following appeared in the press after one of Dieudonne’s surges in popularity and was used to support his arrest, but as I point out the reasoning is hysterical and plain nutty. You see in France backward is slang for forward so the Quenelle is a hiel Hitler:

Also sprach Ossama, an illegal immigrant from Algeria who has been living in Germany lately, and claims he has been visiting France as a tourist for the past ten days. He also threatened a Jewish nurse, referring to Hitler “not having finished the job”.

After an immediate summary trial, the man was sentenced today to an effective fifteen-month prison term for “praising terrorism”.

The law repressing the act of praising terrorism was voted November last year. According to this law, if they were French, people like Noam Chomsky or Norman Finkelstein would go to prison for presenting Hamas as a resistance movement. Other examples are legion, of course…

France has never been a bastion of free speech, at all. As this orgy of arrests and prosecutions shows. The French simply detest religion and distinguish between mocking religious belief and figures on the one hand, and mocking the religious minorities per se on the other.

So, if you want to blaspheme, France is the place to be. Anything else that anyone finds offensive, that can get you fined and/or locked up.

Dieudonné’s one-man-show in Metz, programmed for tonight (Friday), has not only received last-minute approval, but the court also ordered the city to make the planned theater available.

Things are not always as black-and-white as they seem.

I think this confirms what I’ve said all along: that the prosecution of Dieudonné for his tweet was the work of the Executive branch, but that the Judicial branch won’t play along.

He does, however, still face court cases relating to one sentence in his show, in which he wished that the gas chambers had prevented the birth of a Jewish critic, relating to tax evasion and relating to the use of donations to pay fines which is prohibited in France, you’re supposed to pay them yourself. But none of those are likely to put him in prison.

Thanks for ignoring my earlier comment. I see that free speech is highly evident here (sarcasm all MINE) It’s been over 8 hours since I’ve commented – still a no show. But if this site is anything like I think it is…. This comment will get posted and not my original post. Free speech – apparently the appearance of reality is all that really matters. Thanks

That’s pretty fucking funny. The guy has a way with words and this just is some premo good bullshit:

We were given some insight into this on Newsnight earlier this week when Evan Davis, growing nicely into his job, interviewed the lawyer, journalist and associate of Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald – a man strikingly deficient in the musculature necessary to essay a smile.
…

Leading Greenwald with expert gentleness into the gated hell that is his mind, Davis put the case for differing viewpoints. Nothing could have been more instructive than Greenwald’s dead expression – his mouth fixed in the rigor mortis of absolute conviction, his eyes unanimated by the pleasure of conversation or the excitement of controversy. Doubt honours a man, but this was the face of someone whom no ghost of a second thought dares visit. No consciousness of absurdity either. As for the humanity whose civil rights he champions with such icy rigidity, for that he had nothing but contempt. We are merely, if we don’t think what he thinks, the playthings of the powerful. This is the terrifying paradox of zealotry: no one hates humanity more than those who believe they know what’s best for it.

“For those just joining the discussion, Sam Harris is an anti-Muslim bigot.” – Cindy

Hypocrisy is the claim or pretense of holding beliefs, feelings, standards, qualities, opinions, behaviors, virtues, motivations, or other characteristics that one does not actually hold.

It is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another.

In moral psychology, it is the failure to follow one’s own expressed moral rules and principles.

Recent studies in psychology have identified cognitive biases and distortions that predispose humans to readily perceive and condemn faults in others, while failing to perceive and condemn faults of their own.

“We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the first law of nature.” – Voltaire

That interesting comment doesn’t alter the fact that Harris is an anti-Muslim bigot, nor the fact that Voltaire was an anti-Semite.

“Contrary to the assumptions under which some Harris defenders are laboring, the fact that someone is a scientist, an intellectual, and a convincing and valuable exponent of atheism by no means precludes irrational bigotry as a driving force in their worldview. In this case, Harris’ own words, as demonstrated below, are his indictment…”

“This {Harris’ criticism} is not a critique of religion generally; it is a relentless effort to depict Islam as the supreme threat. Based on that view, Harris, while depicting the Iraq war as a humanitarian endeavor, has proclaimed that ‘we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam.’ He has also decreed that ‘this is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with millions more than have any direct affiliation with Al Qaeda.’ ‘We’ – the civilized peoples of the west – are at war with “millions” of Muslims, he says. Indeed, he repeatedly posits a dichotomy between “civilized” people and Muslims: ‘All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth.'”

I believe all of you calling this hypocrisy are sick individuals.
We have freedom of speech in the West. We can insult people if we want. INCITING VIOLENCE does not fall under the realm of freedom of speech. He has repeatedly made hate speeches, while the cartoonists are simply satirizing what Islamic radicals have ADMITTED to. How can you not see the difference?
Here’s another way: Charlie Hebdo satirizes what Islamists admit to in order to convey to the world the suffering Islamists are inflicting upon their people and US. What this “comedian” does is advocate for the murders of a minority group and the West, which ultimately results in deaths because the Islamists have proven and admitted they wish to kill said minorities and Westerners.
Any attempts to draw a parallel between what a the satirical cartoonists did and what this monster did is shameful.
Furthermore, leave Israel out of it… your antisemitism is showing. Your bringing up Israel PROVES you are antisemitic. The attacks he condones were in FRANCE, no matter how badly the loser wants it to be about Israel.

So, in speech-loving France, three school workers are being fired for refusing to observe a moment of silence for Charlie Hebdo; one is going to be charged with “apologia for terrorism”: En francais: http://t.co/Io9iqV9iMm

But don`t similar issues happen in the US too, in universities in particular?

No.

While at the moment there is an egregious case of a Palestinian-American professor having been fired even before he began teaching due to Zionist pressure on the board of trustees, they know they will lose in court and just think it’s worth the damages award they know they’ll be ordered to pay. But “hate speech”codes and the like have consistently been rejected by courts at public universities. The American university is very much a traditional zone in which free speech is particularly cherished and expected.

What does occur in the U.S., is we have a heinous statute prohibiting “material support” for terrorist organizations as known by being on a State Department list. Our Supreme Court grotesquely upheld this law only a few years ago; this is an enormous error that should someday be reversed, but in the meantime many Muslims are rotting in prison for “crimes” like offering the Hezbollah channel in a cable TV package.

Mona….. You may have forgotten that in 2005, DePaul University in Chicago denied Norman Finkelstein tenure and dumped him from the faculty after pressure from the usual suspects, including the Jewish Federation of Chicago and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (actually the Anti-Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith — the league that specializes in defamation and the smear).

In 2006, Yale denied University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole a senior appointment to teach there, despite being approved by both Yale’s sociology and history departments. According to several Yale faculty members, the denial was “highly unusual.” Juan Cole throughout his career has been critical of Israel in his lectures, writings and blog. The pressure against Cole was reflected by Alexander Joffe, writing in the ‘Middle East Quarterly': “Cole suggests that many Jewish American officials hold dual loyalties, a frequent anti-Semitic theme.”

You are right about the Zionist-instigated and un-American U.S. statute that purports to define and criminalize “giving material support to terrorism.”

And dont forget the loving works of the underground, Americas FBI>
that hire 18 year old, strong, intelligent, attractive, ambitious, young ladiie(s?)
(they found this one in community college at 16— i believe)
to target young white males, and see if they would like to—exercise their discontent and frustration–

The real problem all together is religion itsel, though I believe in real freedom including religion. I could only imagine what a better place the earth would be without it based on most wars/arguments/assassinations, and even political unrest is caused by the simple differance in what many different people believe. I believe the only thing worth believing in this life is the survival of whatever lies ahead of us as a human race and no god is going to help us do that. So in the midst of this I disagree with both sides of this argument.

What is so disconcerting for me is that so many people don’t see the truth in this issue and others where liberty and freedom are at stake. This suggests to me that “free thinking” or freedom of thought and ideas will never be politicized because on the whole real thinking (by the congeries) doesn’t exist. “Freedom of speech” can exist where people aren’t capable of thinking, but “freedom of ideas” cannot exist where freedom in speech is absent.

“Failing to understand the obvious link between last week’s events and France’s policy in the Middle East, he also reiterated the West should have bombed Syria in 2013, after the alleged chemical attack by the Assad forces.” `ghost0

I coincidentally fell across your reply. Perhaps next time you quote me, if you ever do, you’d be so kind as to do so beneath my comment, so as to allow me to answer.

Perhaps you’d also be so kind as to provide me with your sources regarding Scahill and Hussain supporting the theory Assad was behind the August 2013 chemical attack, so that I can read their arguments for doing so.

I took a quick look around and all I could find were 1/ Scahill’s refusal to attend a conference in presence of one Mother Agnes, who denied Assad’s involvement and accused extremist “rebels” instead; 2/ a Sep. 1, 2013 op ed by Hussain on the al Jazeera-English website, in which no specific blame is uttered.

I do know, for instance, Carla Del Ponte, fmr. chief prosecutor at the International Penal Court and member of the UN’s investigative commission on Syria at the time, accused “rebels” of using sarin gaz in Syria in May 2013. The swiftness with which she was disavowed with authoritative arguments by most major Western powers left no doubt as to the official ‘pravda’.

So, if Scahill and Hussain’s irrefutable evidence is somewhere out there, lease show me the URL’s.

Pardon my tact. I was using François Hollande’s sentiments w/ respect to the alleged transgressions as the basis of my point. I cannot provide you w/ irrefutable evidence to their conclusions on the matter, for at this point in time, none exist. The truth is that in my research, Mr. Scahill and Mr. Hussain have yet to address this pertinent issue (sarin gaz), while at the same time, professing that Mr. Assad oversees a “slaughtering, murderous regime..” The fact that they haven’t responded to the numerous queries is suspect (imho), and fails the common-good. Mr. Hussain has disturbingly promoted a *US vs Syria war in prior articles, and has yet to justify his reasoning for it. Mr. Scahill rudely threatened to pull out of the conference you referenced, and in doing so, successfully removed Mother Agnes Mariam (peace activist) from said event. To this day, he has yet to respond as to whether his reasoning was based on her refutes that question the legitimacy of the Western-powers evidence, or for that matter, his reasoning, period.

My unverified snipe was an attempt (..as you can see, useless) at goading them into validating their beliefs, since principled means have failed to get them to produce qualified answers.

Appreciating the reference to Carla Del Ponte (..and her swift disavowing), and your contributions on the whole.

“I am very ashamed of my insults of others, if it means anything to you, but in my defense (!) I ‘ve only tried above all else to be honest, and suppressing my temper is probably worse than exposing and undoing it in this way, of which you are a part..” -Cindy

Humbling, but to date you have yet to atone for your blatantly disrespectful utterances. Here’s some sound advise. Have your Zen-Master enlighten you to the fine art of ‘khamati’ during your next session.

Thanks for your concern, but I don’t think I need to ‘atone.’ My shame is to do with not meeting my own standards, or my teacher’s. My responses are not ‘blatantly disrespectful,’ though they’ve been unnecessarily tinged with anger and may have hurt some feelings – this is a source of regret to me, not shame as with not meeting standards.

You sound like a prim and proper little grandmother, but I’m sure you’re a very nice one.

As The New Yorker is reporting, at least as far as the French go, arresting Dieudonnee whilst simultaneously being all “JeSuisCharlie” is consistent, as soon as one understands that — as reflected in their law — they see attacking religion as almost always justified:

Charlie Hebdo, for its part, has survived forty-eight trials over the past twenty-two years, according to Le Monde, and has lost a total of nine times, generally for “injure”—personal defamation—rather than hate speech, after, for instance, describing a journalist as “a complete and utter cretin” and a right-wing politician as “the bitch of Buchenwald.” But attempts to punish the publication for religious insults have generally failed, whether it was referring to Pope John Paul II as “un pape de merde” (a shitty pope) or publishing cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

French intolerance of religious belief and practice, however, may foreclose Muslim immigrants from smoothly transitioning into French society:

Although the French are in no mood for compromise at the moment, they might want to reflect on the fact that America’s Muslim minority, which is free to wear headscarves or not, is far more integrated into American life than France’s. The immediate response in France to the recent massacre has been more forcefully to push its “our way or the highway” form of assimilation, which has, frankly, not been working. This past week, when the French school system enforced a minute of silence for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack (generally under “Je Suis Charlie” signs), incidents were reported at some seventy French schools—mostly ones with large Muslim populations—where students resisted the observance. While many French see this as siding with the terrorists over the victims, this is not necessarily so. The French state was, in fact, forcing those students to pay homage to a publication that had, in their view, mocked their religion. If it is legitimate for Charlie Hebdo to publish offensive cartoons, it must be legitimate to object, peacefully, to its doing so.

I can’t even imagine public schools in the U.S. forcing all the kids to pay homage to Andres Serrano for Piss Christ. That’s the stuff of Fox News’s dreams.

Comparing Arab integration in France with that in the US is not quite fair. Most Arabs in France are or are the children of uneducated low-income workers. Those in the US are more upwardly mobile – they are selected for that.

Mexicans in France are better integrated than those in the US for exactly the same reason: those who come to France are not orange pickers but university professors.

As far as the headscarf controversy is concerned, I can only say that I used to live in a majority-immigrant neighborhood in the city of Toulouse, and every single one of the Muslim schoolgirls and young women I knew supported the ban. Without it, their parents would force them to wear headscarfs to school. And there is a difference between schools you may have in the US with one or two headscarfs, and those you will find (and could have found in France without the ban) in many European countries with 90% of the girls wearing the scarf.

At the time the opposition to the ban – by Jacques Chirac, who had duly consulted leaders of, and was much beloved of, the Muslim community – was led by two upper class French-Jewish girls who had converted to Islam. The “masses” were actually rather relieved, at least that’s what I saw around me.

Without it, their parents would force them to wear headscarfs to school.

As between parents and the state, parents should have the authority to determine how modestly their children must dress. Moreover, my understanding is that this law also applies to adults, who certainly should be deciding whether or not their heads need to be covered in public.

But thank you for the points about Mexican and Muslim immigrants to our two countries. It does make sense that the more upwardly mobile and educated immigrants will respond differently to a host country.

The headscarf ban applies only at school. The ban on niqabs and burkas applies everywhere. I opposed the second ban because it was unnecessary provocation; there were almost no burkas in France, I’ve only seen one once in 25 years in this country. That was typical Sarkozy, a guy who has really made a mess of things by confusing the formerly clear dividing line between moderate right and far right.

I can see your point when it comes to letting parents decide, but that’s just not the French way. The State is a third parent, as it were, and it was acting against segregation – secularism was just an excuse. Chirac who passed the ban in his later years (though not when young) felt very strongly about minorities and republican values. It is certainly so that Muslim women in France, having not covered their hair during their formative years, are also much less likely to do so in adulthood than their counterparts in Holland or the UK. Also, I have spoken to French-Arab parents who were glad of the headscarf ban, because they didn’t really want to impose headscarfs or hijabs on their daughters, but would for social reasons have felt obliged to if the excuse of the law had not existed. It’s really a rather complicated issue but in terms of results, I would argue that Muslim women in France feel more free than those in other countries because they enjoyed the protection of the State when they were girls. Chirac even today is very popular among the Muslim minority.

Also, I have spoken to French-Arab parents who were glad of the headscarf ban, because they didn’t really want to impose headscarfs or hijabs on their daughters, but would for social reasons have felt obliged to if the excuse of the law had not existed.

That’s an appalling abdication of responsibility; endorsing the authoritarian principle that the state decides how your children should dress, all so that one need not have to deal with the issue oneself.

To accept the state should be making such decisions means one is foreclosed from complaining in principle about the heavy-handed intrusion when the state makes a decision one does not like.

Don’t get me wrong — I cannot get used to Western Muslim women covering themselves with scarves. I’ve discussed it with some of them, and try hard to accept their statements that it is, for them, a matter of personal choice; a dedication to their culture that they agree with.

But I don’t see Muslim men running around in the West covered up like that. Nor am I aware of “modesty police” going after males in the more theocratic Muslim nations.

Nevertheless, it is indeed a matter of parental, and when adult, personal choice. Certainly not the state’s.

The goal may not have been to assimilate immigrants into society – at least originally. “Multiculturalism” was introduced and encouraged by the left (certainly not the right) to preserve cultural values brought by immigrants – and to provide a sense of pride as well as preserve a connection to the past for immigrants. Indeed, all cultures are created equally and one culture is not better than the next – just different – so why not encourage people to embrace their past? Multiculturalism in theory has the opposite intention of assimilation. Assimilation may not have been the goal at all. Canada has embraced multiculturalism with success, but other western societies like Europe with a large influx of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa has struggled. The US faces a similar problem with their large population of Mexican immigrants. Enclaves develop where assimilation becomes more difficult. The language barrier is preserved and with high unemployment, assimilation becomes much more difficult. The net result in many cases is generational poverty.

The New Yorker – a liberal rag if one ever existed – seems to be jumping off of the multiculturalism bandwagon trying to blame the French for problems with assimilation. Multiculturalism is a great concept in theory, but has failed to a large degree in practice.

The New Yorker also seems to forget that the murders were not simply about insults to the prophet Mohammed, but that four random Jews were targeted and murdered as well which had nothing to do with insulting Islam – at least not by the French Press.

“…….The French state was, in fact, forcing those students to pay homage to a publication that had, in their view, mocked their religion. If it is legitimate for Charlie Hebdo to publish offensive cartoons, it must be legitimate to object, peacefully, to its doing so……”

Peaceful protests are a right in western society – and while there is no way to know exactly how many students participated or agreed with the protests, seventy schools is a considerable amount. The objections to observing a minute of silence for an act by people who used murder for social and political commentary (Jewish murders included) just shows how far many Muslims are from being assimilated in European culture. Ultimately, the blame must go to the French elite. They need to be more sensitive to multiculturalism.

” Indeed, all cultures are created equally and one culture is not better than the next – just different – so why not encourage people to embrace their past?” HAHAHHAHAHA! Omg you are hilarious. Do you know why the Spanish massacred the “culturally rich” Mayans and Aztecs upon first landing on their shores? The Spanish witnessed the “culturally rich” natives sacrifice women and infants to their witch-gods. They witnessed the disgusting blood-lust, the bestiality, the real deal savageness we have only seen in theatrically produced horror films using CGI which can’t even display most of what the natives did as it would not legally be allowed to be shown even in a fabricated cartoon form. The Spanish were SO disgusted by what they saw, and knew there was no rehabilitating these “animals” they gave all those horrid sadists an instant death penalty. It would be too gruesome to even describe what the natives performed on a daily basis.

“…….In the U.S., school children may not be coerced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. That is morally correct policy…..”

A moment of silence is not the Pledge of Allegiance. Regardless, I never made a statement either way on supporting the silence except to mention it’s their right to protest. I just suggested that there is a problem with assimilation when Muslim students from 70 schools object to showing respect for the those killed by an Islamic terrorist attack – even if they disagree with how the cartoonist depicted Mohammed. They should feel far more offended by the way that Islamic terrorist depict Islam.

The New Yorker puts out exceptional articles – just with a tweak to the left…….

I just suggested that there is a problem with assimilation when Muslim students from 70 schools object to showing respect for the those killed by an Islamic terrorist attack – even if they disagree with how the cartoonist depicted Mohammed. They should feel far more offended by the way that Islamic terrorist depict Islam.

I’ve seen how Charlie Hebdo treats Catholicism, the pope, the trinity & etc. My assimilated mother would give those people a moment of silence right after she accepted I was never going to be a Catholic again — which is to say, never.

Excuse me Mona, but who has died in an attack because of Pass Christ ? Could you show respect to the 12 victims? Could you compare what is equivalent? The minute of silence was not for newspaper but for 12 people including two policemen and a doorman who died because of 2 terrorists who massacred everybody, armed with kalashnikovs, just because of cartoons ” that offended their prophets. I am an atheist and for me all of this is surreal, so I m glad my laic country has been so far respecting freedom of speech about religions that are considered as opinions. About the horrific Dieudonné, don’t imagine him as a victim. He plays all the time with this freedom of speech to make his fans believe he is persecuted by French law. Just to let you know as somebody said earlier: speech promoting antisemitism is forbidden, it is not about religion but historical facts and also a population. Dieudonné is the one who is invited by Iran and congratulates the president for his freedom of mind, who says that “Zionists“ killed Jesus… All this kind of stupidity that I recommend you to listen to in his interviews, but in his shows. He is also trying to make his hands believe in the fact that the recent attacks were a conspiracy, despite the propaganda video of one of the killers and their previous friends talking about their beliefs…. If you stand for this man, please check what kind of a sinister guy he is by listening to his interviews. In those times of hatred, in France where antisemitism, antifrench and also anti Muslim feeling grow, we don’t need one guy like that.

What a pity to read such things when we are having trouble in our own country explaining people and moreover children the difference between Charlie Hebdo’s and Dieudonné’s sense of humor.

Dieudonné was a loved humorist back in the day. You will certainly find numerous videos where he’s funny, even about the jews, but the latest are not so fun anymore. The reason he’s pointed out now is because almost all he “laughs” about is jews. And when you listen to him, you can’t quite say if he’s joking anymore. He’s not considered a comedian anymore, he’s considered a polemicist. When you attend his show, it’s not like any humorist’s show, it so looks like an assembly.

Charlie Hebdo sure makes fun of muslims… as well christians, jews, fat people, skinny people, the government, anyone really. When you take a look at interviews of the cartoonists, you discover the sweetest and most tolerant people, who want to make us laugh about and question everything.

Both Charlie Hebdo and Dieudonné have been sued several times : both have sometimes been acquitted and sometimes sentenced. Yes it has been considered sometimes Dieudonné was making a joke, but sometimes that he was just incitating to hatred. Sometimes justice said Charlie Hebdo was going too far as well.

We all understand, contrary to integrists of any kind, that we need to be able to laugh about and question anything. But I’ve never laughed to a joke about gay people when I know the person in front of me is homophobic. Told by a non-homophobic person, the same joke could make me laugh. It doesn’t have the same resonance.

You have the right to make fun of the attacks, the dead etc.: yesterday’s issue of Charlie Hebdo just did. But we know how they feel about it. Expressing pure hatred and advocating destruction doesn’t bring anything good to any society. Sharing such opinions publicly, morevover through the Internet where it can be shared and stays written for good, can only help enroling more lost kids in this spiral, and plunge our country in chaos. Therefore I agree with our french laws and the government those people deserve to be stoped.

Freedom of speech is valuable to us and that’s why you can’t call sunday’s gathering a sham. Apologizing or deniying a crime (and meaning it) however is an offence and should be punished. Every right comes with limits and duties, otherwise it’s just anarchy. Even freedom has limits: it stops when you reach the limits of others’ freedom.

I would like to congratulate you on your brilliant essay about the hipocrisy of the so-called “free-speech” mainstream media propaganda, which simply Loves to put the tag of “terrorist” (it’s like a dogma, repeated and repeated as Goebbels once suggested…it works!!) on every vision and act differrent than that supported by their occidental christian-jewish views.

It is insane indeed to testify all this non-sense rethoric about the “evil” of this recently arrested french reporter on a point of view of him that just criticized the jewish community, as charlie did one thousand times againt the islam and the muslim communities without ANY criticism.

As Norman Finkelstein (he an exception, a conscious jew, as mr .Chomsky, on this massive propaganda commanded by the unseparable pair, us-israel) put it on one of his masterpieces, “the hollocaust industry”, in the recent past every sort od critic against the jews or israel is “anti-semitism”, everything is related to the hollocaust, and no one can mention any word contrary to the views deffended by the us and the zionists, or is right away “anti-semitism”!. Where is the free speech? Why do hundreds of thousands (even that the mass media loves to put the numbers out of reality spreading that millions and so forth were there!) of french do not think of the other side of the story, and defend the freedom of this and many other french journalists who have the right -I add, the obligation!!!- to criticize the genocides,destructions and humiliation of so many muslim countries, as recently in Irak, Afghanistan and Gaza, just for a few examples?!!

Regarding the protests against the new Gaza Massacre or Genocide, mr. Holland then opposed the pacific demonstrations against the terrorist state of israel, arguing that there were crimminals inbetween and related non sense!

It is time for the world to open up its eyes wide, otherwise the number of civilian victims and of devasted countries will go further up, and this huge injustice will not cease at a short-term perspective.

Oh you poor thing – it’s so hard to be an anti-Semite these days! Thank God you and Dieudonné have your “conscious jews” along with Dieudonné’s buddy Jean-Marie Le Pen out there to fight Jewish world domination and save all those “devastated countries” from all those “destructions and humiliation.”

It hurts to read this article and some comments that imo reflect a lack of context and a way to put freedom of expression on a pedestal without using rational thought. Article 11 of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (still a foundational document for the current French Constitution): “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.” There are limits to freedom of expression, everywhere, and there should be, even if as little as possible; words can lead to the death of people. These limits are not the same everywhere; hate speech is accepted in some places and not in others. In continental Europe, the memories of the 2nd WW (and of the hate spewed by the press in the 1930’s) have helped build a paradigm where spreading an exclusive, hateful ideology is condemned while attacking metaphorical sacred cows to press forward an inclusive, human-centered ideology is allowed.
It does not invalidate other points raised by the author, such as the efforts at political exploitation of the tragedy and of its consequences. Regards!

This article has been very popular on RiseUpTimes.org: KATIE HALPER: 46 EXAMPLES OF MUSLIM OUTRAGE ABOUT PARIS SHOOTING THAT FOX NEWS CAN’T SEEM TO FIND. It appears that Fox News is not the only network and its pundits “unable” to find this information.

Note the explanation for the cartoon of the pregnant Boko Haram sex slaves (which Glenn reproduced in a prior column); the authors point out the humor is actually at the expense of the rightwing French who are militating to cut welfare support.

The intent of the humor, even if crystal-clear, doesn’t make everything okay.

In that cartoon, the four comically pregnant girls are drawn with identical, angry, masculine, racially-caricatured faces. Perhaps this is just an extension of the satiric intent as in: this is how supporters of the Front National might draw the girls. In that case, why not at least show a right-winger depicting or imagining the image? Because it would be too on-the-nose, perhaps? Well, there’s a conversation to be had there.

But here’s another wild idea: Why not a cartoon in which the girls are trying to enter France and some anti-immigrant folks are accusing them of being pregnant parasites? After all, the joke is presumably that while even conservatives don’t actually believe that about Boko Haram’s victims, such a belief is a natural emotional/logical extension of their stated arguments and dog whistles. Hence, showing a conservative stating such a belief amounts to humorous exaggeration, not pointless depiction of reality. And this way, no one “needs” to be drawn as a big-mouthed Sambo.

Ultimately, though I agree they weren’t trying to champion right-wing ideals, they were courting controversy for its own sake. And that’s not necessarily what the world needs. (Should-be-unnecessary disclaimer: The cartoonists bore absolutely no responsibility for their own murders, which were entirely the fault of Islamic terrorists. Also, the Koran’s a lousy book.)

I was reading this with a sceptical mind, but Glenn is quite right. There is a very clear double standard in the west (and probably anywhere on earth) when it comes to free speech. Some ideas you are simply forbidden to state. We in western countries are no better than the regimes we like to criticize.

There is nothing that I disagree with in both this article, and the previous one publishing anti-Jewish cartoons. My private response to the hypercritical blather of the last week was total immersion in Lenny Bruce, who was constitutionally incapable of sparing any group, sect etc. But, I am confounded by one aspect of your writing in both articles. You keep referring to the “West” and “free speech in the West”, I can only assume you intend one of either two positions about relative free speech East and West, neither flattering to you,nor probably your intention. So, I guess that I am soliciting a response from you to explain your usage. In context it would appear that either you distinguish free speech as only a Western problem, because you believe it isn’t an issue in the East, where. in fact it hardly exits at all. Or, you retain a vehemently paternalistic Western view of the East that excuses any absence of free speech in the East because, what would you expect from “them”. It would not be without merit, while turning your spotlight on the limitations of true free speech in the West, to point out that there are very few countries in the East, if any among the less secular Muslim countries, where any discussion of issues like these would be possible, unless they were entirely one-sided. For myself, I am most comfortable cursing all their houses, along with Lenny.

it is all bullshit it is to find a reason to attack middle east and create a civil war in muslim countries specialy Arabians they have always hate muslim and always defend Juwish and second reason for the petrole and gas ad some of the Europeans and americans commandant have profit by selling arms and some owns oil companies that they let them work there after every war and some owns constructions companies so after they destroy it they bring their companies to rebuilt again the country and some have only some percentage in thus companies and others because of religion and racism
I am Dieudonne 1000 time

Great stuff Glenn!! But can someone at The Intercept please cover the Albuquerque PD?? or maybe The Intercept can hire Max Blumenthal, who has done phenomenal work on the APD?? I don’t mind reading about it on AlterNet, but it would be great if we could have that coverage on TI as well.

Glenn covers drones, hypocrisy of drones, drone-like subject matter, NJ Muslims under NYPD surveillance, internation ethics, and NSA docs dropped figuratively in his lap. Is this Albuquerque thing somehow related to any of that and, if so, can it be reasonably accessed over the web from the comfort of suburban Brazil?

I’m not asking Glenn to cover it. I’m asking The Intercept to cover it, like they covered Ferguson, MO. I’m just trying to bring it to his attention. If I had twitter, I’d tweet instead. Kindly excuse the inconvenience.

While trying to unpack this wide-ranging subject introduced first by the atrocities surrounding the murders of and associated with the writers/cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, and then with, what I initially felt, were gratuitous “defending terrorism” charges against the Facebook post of the French citizen Dieudonne, I sought out other perspectives.

Twitter, although great for practicing ones brevity, leaves much to be desired as a conversational platform; however, it is well suited for finding out about early breaking points of view from a wide range of cultures all around the world. My travel eventually led me to a tweet of Diogo Pinto (@joaodiogopinto), who posited that not only was the arrest of Dieudonne in France for his Facebook post, and I’m paraphrasing here, “normal,” (it’s happened before – he goes to court, he wins sometimes, some not) but that also Dieudonne’s Facebook comment clearly, in Diogo Pinto’s words, “conveys hatred and/or promotes/condones violence,” a position that is illegal in France and “elsewhere.”

I shared my view with Mr. Pinto that A) no reasonable person would find that Dieudonne’s words rose to that level at all, and B) even if they did, it’s clearly unequal treatment (un-egalitarian) to arrest someone for what is clearly an opinion – not an idea that a reasonable person would consider to promote or condone violence.

In the end we parted ways after I pointed out his position was a non sequtur, in that you can’t be egalitarian & authoritarian at same time. After all, the slogan “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” (Liberty, equality, fraternity) was used during the French Revolution and is still used as an official slogan of the French government today, or so Wikipedia tells me.

Which led me to ask: is this “Diogo Pintio” the same “Diogo” that has posted a few times here, and if so, what does he represent in the real world that could lead to these incongruous assertions? This is what I found per to Wikipedia, and subsequently confirmed at his twitter listed website:

João Diogo Pinto is Secretary General of the European Movement International (EMI), one of the largest pan and pro-European civil society organisations with currently more than 70 Member Organisations, bringing together representatives from European associations, political parties, industry and business associations as well as trade unions.

Mr. Pinto is also a member of the steering committee of the Spirelli Group, whose manifesto explicitly promotes “fighting against nationalism and intergovernmentalism. By supporting the aims and principles laid out in the manifesto, Spinelli group followers try to speed up the process of European integration and promote federal Europe.”

Even if the “Diego” posting here is not the same as the Mr. Diogo Pinto I conversed with on twitter, the latter’s comments fall resoundingly on the ears as hypocritical and duplicitous, to both his organizations mission statement which proclaims to be against such “[French] nationalism and intergovermentalism” as well as to the idea that, in a ” pro-European civil society” the citizens should be presented with such un-egalitarean treatment as Mr. Dieudonne is, and in his specific case, for over a decade.

In other words, Mr. Diogo Pinto, by all he proclaims publicly to represent, should be fighting for the rights of Mr. Dieudonne, and not against them.

Of course, I could be completely wrong n my appraisal and interpretation here – as such I invite clarification in order to straighten me out.

“It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.” – Voltaire

Honestly – you do not think that the message, your message, my message, his message in context of the discussion being had has validity irrespective of the messenger?

“There is a utilitarian case for free expression. It recognizes that the freedom to speak must also be insisted on for the person who thinks differently, because it is pointless to support only free speech for people who agree with you. It is not only unprincipled to want that, but also self-defeating. For your own sake, you need to know how other people think.” – Christopher Hitchens

Cindy – Regarding your idea that the same fountain can’t produce both bitter and sweet water – it is arguably the case that it can and does, as you have proved here in discussion with others:

“I hadn’t considered you were actually stupid. Read the following carefully.” – Cindy to Mona

“Try critical thinking. You’d be good at it, but it requires consistency, self-honesty and humility, which you apparently lack currently. Okay. Now I’m done, unless you petulantly and disingenuously blurt out something else in need of clarification.” – Cindy to Mona

“Your being stubbornly defensive about yourself and your dubious, unstable position in this regard is childish and reprehensible.” – Cindy to Mona

“You should indeed be sorry. You are really demonstrating how pathetic you can be when cornered. Your attempts at muddying the issue with this latest disjointed hysterical jabbering are almost amusing.” – Cindy to Mona

“Their round eyes, their flattened nose, their lips which are always large, their differently shaped ears, the wool of their head, that very measure of their intelligence, place prodigious differences between them and the other species of men.”-Voltaire on black people
So maybe, the brother–persecutes–monster quote gets a little muddy…..??????

Well, maybe we can just look at the constitution and the bill of rights as stalwart and enlightened works of political liberation, written by great old, wise, white guys…….
Who probably thought like Voltaire, that blacks could not ascertain,or were not spiritual cognitive enough to enjoy, (because of their inferior breeding and being of a separate species—-so they should be used as–, grunts, laborers, servants, human tools)…….
This–

; Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Yet, dont you see this same intellectual tripe being swung around today….ITS INEQUALITY STUPID…

Perhaps Voltaire did as well. But that is really not an argument, except to your authority, which makes it fallacious; while your next is a straw man argument, and equally fallacious and beside the point:

“I did NOT, however, spout racist, bigoted drivel” – Cindy

Perhaps. But saving us all from the even more bitter well of your thoughts (“You should read what I wanted to say”) and then have us drink the less-poisoned waters of your well instead, simply because you feel others others are “self-deluded” is what many would I would to epitomize self-delusion and, again, hypocrisy.

I will post what I wrote (but did not post) several days ago regarding this:

“On the one hand it’s seems insensible when discussing humans and how they think and feel and express themselves on every facet of life they rightfully have an opinion on, and still be able to reconcile some positions they take with other ideas they also hold (as in Voltaire’s writings you specifically referenced); while on the other hand, humans are anything if consistently sensible on every facet of life they rightfully have an opinion.

This incongruity pretty much explains what I saw while you were “refuting” the position of Mona’s arguments with what can charitably be said to be poor manners. My first reaction was: “How can one sensibly divorce this new puerile Cindy from the comments and thoughts of Cindy-past?”

Admittedly, I have not read all of your comments, but I do look forward to them, as I find them on the whole to be thought provoking and to add to the discussion.

As for the new (to me) puerile-Cindy comments? Not so much, initially. But that’s my problem, not yours.

So in the end, your insensible comments (to the beholder) or mine, or Voltaire’s, or Greenwald’s can be just as readily divorced from their more sensible ones (again, to the beholder) so long as the context in which the comments were made is clear.

” If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. – Noam Chomsky

I find it odd that you would quote the bible (reducing a person to a well in a failed metaphor) when it comes to antisemitism.
You surely know that the new testament is filled with extremely prejudicial statements about Jews right?
Voltaire in that respect pales in comparison.

Not sure what you’re trying to say. You despise me? You despise Voltaire? You think I despise Voltaire?

I’m just putting an asterisk next to his name, that’s all. I hadn’t thought about it before, but many people need similar asterisks, just so people can be reminded that truly grotesque blind spots delude even the most respected views.

Yes, I have poor manners, but I’m no bigot.

The modern age has certainly influenced me (now 24) to be a typically occasionally vulgar anti-authoritarian, and indeed part of my respect for (some) old-fashioned and traditional things is borne of my work-in-progress rebellion against the sheeplike, uprooted, aimless crassness of my generation – although there are actually some things about us I like to express which very few older people seem to appreciate.

The “You should read what I wanted to say” was meant humorously. I’m genuinely surprised you find me ‘puerile,’ perhaps its my jokes.

Exactly, and the New Testament is known to be both bitter and sweet, direct and interpolated, derivative and allegorical, historical and mythical… it needs no asterisk for its ‘bon mots’ for everyone knows the source even if their opinions about it differ.

Voltaire is renowned for many things, but at least in the groups I hang out with, not for being an anti-Semite. It seems everybody here knew already, and had forgiven him for it, but my friends and I were pretty shocked, I can tell you.

So maybe I’m just talking to those as unsophisticated as I, pointing out that which all you wise people already knew for ages.

The point that I have been trying to make with comments, quotes by Marx, Hitchens, Voltaire, Greenwald, you, et al. is that all people, excluding the truly mentally incapacitated, are puerile, rude, childish, boorish, prickish, confused, gentle, lovely and kind.

Given that you agree with that premise just stated – and specifically and only regarding Voltaire’s ideas in this context – was he truly mentally incapacitated? Or is it that, like the French with Mr. Dieudonne, you simply don’t care for some of Voltaire’s ideas and wish to censor them (maiming the messenger, if you will) as you did in your comment above warning others that, according to you, Volataire was an unrepentant anti-Semite (but don’t let that cloud your judgement)?

“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.” – Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

“I’ve been as clear as I can. I’m not going to repeat myself. What I wanted to say, I’ve already said.” – Cindy

Which exactly is what? I’ll share my views on the response I gave to the specific post above, which actually was in context to the article in question. I would like yours as well. Please disregard Voltaire’s ideas if that proves an insurmountable issue:

“France Arrests a Comedian For His Facebook Comments, Showing the Sham of the West’s “Free Speech” Celebration” – Glenn Greenwald

Sillyputty: Blah, blah, blah…(all in context to the article and what it brought up): i.e., Arresting/condemning some people’s ideas after celebrating solidarity for other people’s ideas.

Along comes another commenter (without addressing the blah, blah, blah – only the quote): “X (Voltaire) is quoted to support Y (Sillyputty’s argument). Since X’s ideas are morally suspect, therefore Y’s ideas can probably or possibly or may be considered suspect, too. Right?”

In other words, another commenter is condemning Voltaire’s ideas after offering no refutation of other people’s ideas on the subject at hand which isn’t an good idea at all.

It’s what I would call the control, repression, or oppression of an idea. Which is what the article, in my view, is arguing against.

In even more other words, because this commenter considers Voltaire (or Dieudonne, or Hitchens, or Greenwald, et al.) ideas suspect, it therefore renders the preceding argument (or all of Dieudonne, or Hitchens, or Greenwald, et al.) preceding arguments suspect – at least a little bit – for just hanging around with that suspect Voltaire’s idea in the first place.

Because it’s guilt by association, you see.

So in the end, the trite parable about bitter and sweet water coming from the same spout was, intentional or not, noxious and counterproductive to the discussion taking place. The only point made was that even self-proclaimed “very sweet” meaning people will go to great extent to reinforce their confirmation bias at the expense of actually having a productive dialogue.

What was done here isn’t even close to a suitable argument – it is poisoning the well of discourse by killing the messenger’s messenger.

“… The person who, at any stage of a conversation, disagrees, should at least hope to reach agreement in the end. He should be as much prepared to have his own mind changed as seek to change the mind of another … No one who looks upon disagreement as an occasion for teaching another should forget that it is also an occasion for being taught.” – Mortimer J. Adler

i know your wanting engagement from Cindy because she pissed you off–and sure as hell she will hold her own in response….
But how can you conflate Cindy and the French government together? The French Government wants to silence a French citizen….should we have a talk about the tyranny of the powerful????Or am i reading your trap wrong???Or is Cindy just guilty of pissing you off???

To your first point: No, I don’t unless it’s mutually productive. To your second point: Not at all. This is a for the most part a free country/comments section. If I became angry at letters on the screen I’d be out of computer screens by now.

–”The vast bulk of the stirring “free speech” tributes over the last week have been little more than an attempt to protect and venerate speech that degrades disfavored groups while rendering off-limits speech that does the same to favored groups, all deceitfully masquerading as lofty principles of liberty.”——-

“Disfavored groups” and “favored groups” dynamic explored-
I will start the bidding with this–
I believe, in the context of the modern time “now”, this dynamic is about shoring up an old pattern, that was never meant to stay fixed or permanent (environmentally, intellectually, economically). Its about trying to maintain “The Peace” with violence. Its about keeping the Queen relevant. Its about keeping time, when there is no longer a clock.
This digital era is the last containment layer. Inequality, and the triumph of it, is the epoch of a “shared Global civilization” ie–”Globalization”…
Did slaves help make the British empire?
I bet slaves were given certain freedoms to speak their mind, dependent upon the temperament of their owners.

Breaking – the so called “terrorist” from Ohio that was going to kill people in Washington DC was initially investigated by the FBI for a Tweet. He as then surveilled and likely subject to entrapment. Regardless, case shows that FBI is monitoring and enforcing Twitter.

Your points are sharp and concise and have shone a light on the hypocrisy of the so called fee speech, one rule for us and another for them it seems. Duality is a state of mind seen as exceptable by those in power or those seeking power in the west. Whilst i myself do not support either side of this crazy argument i see the merit of what you say. I can only add that were are all of one blood, we all breath the same air and we all drink the same water. Whilst are skin may be of many hues we all want to grow old as we watch are children grow up into adults themselves. Shame on us if we poison are children and twist their outlook of the world which has such beauty in it and such depth of love for one and all that she allows us such a space to develop and grow in yet all we do is hate her and poison her with our industrialisation and toxification of the environment that sustains us into the next realm. We all seem too busy with ourselves that we forget we only have one home and it is the only place that can support us yet we walk blindfolded into destruction and mayhem all too eagerly, shame on us when are we going to learn from the mistakes made throughout history!!! War only profits those who propagate it, those who own the war machines and its denizons of hell…..

– In 2009 Siné made the terrible mistake of jovially suggesting Sarkozy’s marriage to a Jewish woman (which incidentally did happen) would be followed by a conversion to Judaism for financial reasons. This was perhaps the only time in Charlie Hebdo’s history that a cartoon deflected its attention from the overwhelming majority of anti-Islamic, anti-Third World (and homeopathic amounts of anti-Catholic) viscerality. The result? Siné was fired by this very “anti-system” and “subversive” newspaper and barely escaped Dieudonné’s present situation.

– In 2013 Hollande became the only European leader who, for some reason known only to him (and perhaps to Ms Gayet) staunchly defended entering the Syrian Civil War on the side of the opposition, which is dominated by the same stripe of individuals who bite livers our of corpses, open up new smiles under people’s chins and visit cartoonists with Kalashnikovs. Apparently Charlie Hebdo was not interested in devoting a cover to Hollande’s imbecility. It had more pressing assignments to complete, such as portraying a Caribbean-born minister looking like a monkey.

– In 2014 Abel Ferrara tried to distribute his film “Welcome to New York” and the pressures not to do so were such that the film ended up in VOD, without even making it to the theaters. The reason? Its indictment of the French political and cultural elite for what it is. Exemplified in both DSK and the dubious origin of his wife’s family fortune (awkwardly dismissed by the wife as anti-Semitic when in fact no mention of Judaism was made in any form, explicitly or otherwise).

– In 2015 Dieudonné makes a joke which would have been even celebrated as a “boutade” had the victims been Muslim or black or Asian, and he ends up in dire legal straits at the same time as practically all adult Parisians rush to their vat of Kool-Aid standing hours in a cue to buy one more issue of Charlie Hebdo, all in the name of -guess what- “freedom of expression”.

Call me picky if you must, but it looks to me like “freedom of speech” is a codeword for something else.

The people who are trying to turn this world into a giant Jonestown full of zombies (minus the final denouement) are working extra hours lately I think.

Awwwwwww!!! You pedophile worshiping assholes butthurt because your freedom of speech was violated???? Too bad the cartoonist can’t bitch about it, they were killed by some scumbags that didn’t want them expressing themselves!!! Ironic isn’t it???

I as an American citizen exercising my right to free speech in the same vein as the cartoonists and publishers
supported around the world and so loudly in France within the hallowed halls of Charlie Hebdo would like to make a couple of satirical
comments.

The French are lazy and stink like old horse, and would rather loudly sip wine while ignoring anti Islam
hate speech as funny and satire.

Jesus was a middle eastern Jew (ya know the tanish skin toned less Caucasian folks) that hung out with hookers
and likely smoked plenty of KGB while reeking of petrulli oil wearing Birkenstocks which lead him to believe he
had some pretty cool ideas about spiritualism. He hung out with a lot of dudes who all probably like to smoke with
him and participate in weekend and evening outings together.

The KKK had a dream too, it looks a bit like theirs may have been realized.

What the hell do you expect to happen when you piss off a bunch of religious zealots.

Fuck big brother five eyes and any form of domestic surveillance.

Anti vaxers should all go swimming in the river of Ebola blood running through Sierra Leone, and stay there.

All of those involved in torture, and the sudden disappearance of the report should be assassinated.

France has demonstrated the sham of free speech more perfectly than one could hope for.
Its free only when paid for by the blood of those who defended it. Free speech is only truly free if ALL speech
is free. Like it or not (preferably not) hate speech, anti establishment speech and anything that goes against the
status quo needs to be defended as vigorously and vehemently as that funny thing that guy over there said. Is my hate
and disdain for Miley Cyrus any less valuable than my love and joy for the wonderful sounds of Jimmy Page? Is my
dislike of Kim Jung Un any less important than the belief that Muhammad should not be depicted? No, it isn’t. Is my
pleasure for seeing Manchester United destroy City any less valuable than the pleasure one might express at having
the divine avenged? No, it isn’t.

It should not, SHOULD NOT, be a crime to express and idea, or an opinion. If the idea is harmful and someone acts
on it in a way that negatively impacts others should he or she be held accountable? Yes, they should. If the person
who felt the original spark of inspiration directly and really communicated and coerced the other person to cause harm
then, and only then is the speaker at fault. Some wacked out druggie singer going on about suicide on an album would
not be responsible for the poor coping skills of the kid who listened to the album. The Bishop who interacted
with his congregation and told them that Christ compels them to seek out the heretic and burn him is no less responsible
than the Imam who tells his followers to go into a crowded market and blow themselves up.

Hate speech is no less valuable than speech that slides into the cultural norm. Without knowing the hate, the reason
for it, and the people sharing it no one has the ability to learn from it. The censorship of ANY speech diminishes
the value of ALL speech. Without speech that is truly free, how can we ever understand one another and come to a
shared understanding and valuing of ideas. Any government that attempts to legitimize one form of speech over another
is a government to fight against.

The person who has written the most thoughtful articles on Dieudonne (long before the Charlie Hebdo shootings) is Diana Johnstone. This link is particularly useful for debunking the notion that his hand gesture is definitely a sort of Nazi salute (which has spread without much discussion across the English-speaking media, most of whom I suspect have not actually seen the gesture):

Dieudonne is guilty of all sorts of tastelessness, but this gesture at least is not clearly one of them. This second article by Johnstone (one of the most reliable reporters, for me, on modern French society) is also useful:

Just to modify one information about Dieudonné, he is not muslim but christian, he does not practice however.
Anyway you’re right it is not normal to arrest him while everybody claiming in France that we have to defend free speech…

Thank you, Mr. Greenwald. There does (has) seemed to be an ‘odour’, even if subtle, of insubstantial, frivolously adolescent, litigable slander in some of Hedbo’s cartoons. Although ‘free speech’ is one thing, should slanderous publications be defended and treated as sacred? And if all such publications and public utterances are to be evenly and unbiasedly supported (or prosecuted), then some of ‘Hedbo’s’ past creations should at least have been spotlighted as passing over a threshold into capricious slander. One wonders if, with greater skill with words or cartoons, the ‘Hedbo’ murders could have been prevented without the messages being lost. This writer does not have that kind of skill but this writer does claim the privilege, from the gallery, of imagining that ‘Hedbo’ could have reached for higher satirical intellect and better exercised its artistic talent.

so i’m thinking of starting an, ahem, “satirical” magazine loaded with poorly-drawn cartoons of big-lipped,
nappy-haired, fried chicken-eating non-caucasions. i’ll have snazzy rebel flags on the cover of course,
and we’ll call it ‘cracker.’ the first cartoons will have these black-face dudes being crushed by a load
of watermelons, yelling “ah cain’t breeve!” oh, my stars, that’s funny!

you think when some offended black panther firebombs my office, the world’s politicians will turn out
to march in defense of free speech? i’m hoping to jesse and al and eric marching right up front
with little signs saying “I BE CRACKER”

Last time I checked the United States allowed Nazis in the South to have parades and the Westboro Baptist Church to picket funerals. While France has restrictions on speach, so far as I”m aware, the US does not. So not sure the generic “west” is any more useful a term than “Muslim nation” unless you’re trying to polarize. (I don’t mean to imply the US is so great, we are probably far more racist than France but whats in the law books is what’s on the law books and I think lumping France with the US or Canada is as useful as lumping Saudi Arabia with Libya in terms of cultural norms) Oh yeah…and aren’t people in France mostly upset because MURDERERS SHOWED UP AND KILLED A BUNCH OF PEOPLE?!!

The pope joins the debate about free speech in the context if Charlie Hedbo. Apparently he too did not get the memo that the whole affair is not at all related to free speech. Glenn should explain it to him that he is off-topic or just pretending, since this is just about racism and western hipocrisy.

Asked about the attack that killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo – targeted because it had printed depictions of the prophet Muhammad – he said: “One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith.

“There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity … in freedom of expression there are limits.”

He gestured to Alberto Gasparri, who organises papal trips and was standing by his side, and added: “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”

But it’s funny because he gets his own religious scripture, principles and dogma wrong. I’m pretty sure the Holy Father forgot these verses when he advocates others taking offense (or instructing others never to satirize or mock the faithful) at those who would criticize faith or one’s mother. If your faith is strong and pure in either/both any insults to that “faith” should be like water off a duck’s back. At least according to scripture.

Mathew 5:38-40

“You have heard that it was said, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also . . . .”

Mathew 5:10-12

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Proverbs 13:2

From the fruit of their lips people enjoy good things, but the unfaithful have an appetite for violence.

Romans 12:17

“Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.”

Peter 3:9

Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but instead bless others because you were called to inherit a blessing

Thank you for your comment.
I do notice that the quotes you provide are ones focusing on the right action(s) following a personal injury or insult from another.
Acts against the dignity of God are different.
However even Jesus made a whip and used violence to drive the Bankers out of the temple.
Mathew 21:-12 to 13.
Jesus Cleanses the Temple
12And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 13And He said to them, “It is written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER'; but you are making it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”

Compare Matthew 10:34 “Don’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword.
Luke 22:36 Then he said to them, “But now, whoever has a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet. Whoever has none, let him sell his cloak, and buy a sword.

About the analogy about insulting ones mother
“He gestured to Alberto Gasparri, who organises papal trips and was standing by his side, and added: “If my good friend Dr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.””
it should be understood that this relates to the Mother church )ie ones faith.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Church
In Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, a mother church is the church “considered as a mother in its functions of nourishing and protecting the believer”.[1]

You’re wrong in your understanding of the scripture you cited and you’re attempting to project an analogy upon the Holy Father that he himself wasn’t using. The only “analogy” (or maybe simile) he was making is that “religious faith” is like the “the sanctity of the reputation of one’s mother to her child in the child’s mind” i.e. it is so universally, consistently and firmly held by so many that to mock or ridicule it is to engage in unproductive provocation. The Pope was obviously making the point that if the Pope’s best friend insulted the Pope’s mother, even he the Pope would punch him in the nose. Now I don’t honestly believe the Pope would do that nor does he believe anybody should as a normative or moral matter. But he is making the point about understanding as a fellow human being how certain “provocations” are universally understood and how strongly some relationships are felt.

But again, all joking aside I would like to believe the Holy Father does understanding Christ’s message. He was just making a point about certain universally held convictions. Because no commonly held understanding of Christ’s purported beliefs imagines him doing physical violence to any man or woman who had the temerity to insult Christ’s faith or his mother. In fact the biblical instances of Christ counseling (in his own words through various authors of the Bible) exactly the opposite (peace and non-reaction to provocation) are simply too numerous to cite.

If you honestly believe Jesus physically struck people with a whip I don’t think you understand “metaphor” or analogy as used commonly in the Bible. Consult some linguists and religious scholars that aren’t loopy right wing loons and they’ll explain it to you.

It is easy for me to be critical of this, as of Pope Francis’ earlier comments on drug legalization, because I feel like if the Pope visits America, if he wants to visit the spirit of America, the beating heart of America, then he should visit the prisons, the maximum security units, the solitary confinement units, and show us whether the blessed essence of his spirit is really capable of standing up to the demons that have been riding us and shepherding our nation into horror. What then would he say of this? But I think that he walks a line here between religious advice, compassion, and pragmatic politics. He knows that churches, even Catholic churches, will burn before this is done. How many priests will be martyred if he does not confess to a petty violent impulse, even if he would control it? I hope he does not really mean that punching people is good, but rather, that it is not a new concept. I hope he does not want censorship, but rather, wants Christians to always be thinking how to make other people feel their love, and as such, not be so careless of their feelings. Whatever the case may really be, I’m sure he’ll continue to pope and we’ll continue to argue for the perfection of free speech as an ideal on the Internet, and hopefully, we won’t get into a shooting war over the difference.

Judging by his actions, this Pope is like his predecessors, in that he provides spiritual support for the killing of Muslim civilians. The RC church provides chaplains to give spiritual support to the killers. If he was consistent with the teachings of Jesus, he would mandate those chaplains consistently counsel US military people to refuse to kill. Further, he would at least threaten to excommunicate and withdraw sacraments for the killers, including last rites, until they stop, confess, and repent.

This could certainly be explained by the hypothesis that the pope is like the leaders of the US military, in that their prime motivation is to maximize the size and revenue of the organization, to the detriment of the stated mission.

@Diogo
RrHeard pointed out specifics as to why your statement about the pope’s comments on the “debate” in regards to Your Opinion about Glenn’s writings about the Charlie Hedbo issue(s) lacks any context and even presents the pope as being either ignorant or disingenuous in his assessments. But it’s really more simple than all of that. It comes down to this: what difference does it make that it was the pope or it was Joe or Jane blow who said something presenting the issue as, “it is not at all related to free speech?” Just because you think the pope’s words are more meaningful or have some authority over mine or Glenn’s or yours, they in fact, don’t. I don’t know if the pope “got the memo” or not, but as rrheard pointed out, he sure did ignore a lot of available information as he “joined the debate” or expressed his either ignorant or disingenuous opinion.

It is a matter of fact, not of opinion. If significant portion of the global population starts a debate about free speech, then it is about free speech whether you or Glenn like it or not. As they say, you are entitled to your opinions, but not your facts.

That was one feather weak and non-responsive reply. You are entitled to your opinions, but you would do well to state one, if you actually have one, rather than just staple some words together and call it a day.

Apparently you missed this paragraph, so let me helpfully quote it for you:

Despite the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of themselves performing his ugly Nazi-evoking arm gesture in “solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested and prosecuted for them. That’s because last week’s celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists (well beyond mourning their horrifically unjust murders) was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support – at least as much.

The target of Glenn’s article is “mainstream western media figures.” Not the Pope, who is not employed by CNN or any other western media organization. You are off-topic.

From a french perspective, I’d like to say that I agree with most of what this article is saying, but you should know that contrary to what you’re claiming, Bernard Henry-Levy is widely regarded as a pompous imbecile. Also, most of that Je Suis Charlie thing was more about finding a way to express grief about the murders than to actually defend views regarding freedom of speech.
And on a more personnal note, I’d add that you could do without the heavy french-bashing undertone which makes it harder for people like me who happen to agree with what you’re saying to completely back up your position.
Good piece otherwise.

Race is one of the stupidest ideas ever. It is completely opposed to evolution, science and basic logic. Even when given a blank canvas and no expectations, proponents of race still can’t come up with a system that is even logically consistent with its own made up rules. You people are making the religious look like rocket scientists.

At least religion was smart enough to come up with the Omniscient God thing to explain away contradiction and plain stupidity, the best Race can come up with is “Social Construct”, which is just a bullshit way to say bullshit. In its favor, the term “Social Construct”, while not ready to tell the truth, is tired of lying.

– Race is The Religion

Despite the taboos and consequences, Nazism and blasphemy against Islam are common and plentiful compared to attacks against Race itself. Race is the most venerated of all religions. Race is the God above Gods. The common thread. Our universal stupidity. And as such, its critique is the most taboo of all.

How great the consequence to see so many cower as one! But what do they fear? Retribution, or giving up power?

– Free Will versus What is cast in stone

Again, Race is one of the stupidest ideas ever. It’s proponents and those in quiet acquiescence will be rightly spit on for generations for this cruelty and cowardice.

But if you are stupid enough to choose to believe that race is real, then there is a huge difference between blasphemy and racism. When we ignore that the Religion of Race is driving many aspects of the free speech debate these days, we get a very incomplete picture to say the least.

The true comedy is that when forced to confront the issue, Race is not declared a Religion, but Religion is declared a Race.

All praise the new God.

Side note: Just because I don’t believe in Race does not mean I don’t believe in racism. I don’t believe in god, but I believe in religious bigotry. Now a question for you: Why would you ask me the first question, but not the second.

I came to the conclusion years ago that being pro free speech means, to me, supporting the rights of others to say whatever they want. as a black person, I can say, without a second thought, I support the rights of racists to spew the ugliness about POC, free from prosecution or retaliation from the government. Free speech doesn’t mean free of consequences. You might lose your job or your friends, but not your freedom. What France to this “comedian” is unbelievably hypocritical.

Yes, France has laws against hate speech. Personally, I’d do away with those laws – in part for the pernicious way they can be manipulated and arbitrarily enforced. But it’s silly to say that unless you are a free speech absolutist, it is somehow hypocritical to value free speech. There is still a world of difference between speech that calls for killing others and speech that criticizes ideas (offending people who happen to hold those ideas sacred). Anyone who can’t see the difference simply doesn’t want to.

The Independent – Wednesday 14 January 2015 – “Twenty-six mosques around France have been subject to attack by firebombs, gunfire, pig heads, and grenades as Muslims are targeted with violence in the wake of the Paris attacks.

France’s National Observatory Against Islamophobia reports that since last Wednesday a total of 60 Islamophobic incidents have been recorded, with countless minor encounters believed to have gone unreported.”

“France’s crackdown on hate speech is hardly surprising but after so many marched to support Charlie Hebdo’s right to offend, it is a jarring disconnect.

Dieudonné is notorious for his anti-Semitic standup acts, and has been convicted before. But the comic’s alleged crime this time? He posted — briefly, before deleting it — a Facebook notice that declared “as far as I’m concerned I feel like Charlie Coulibaly,” a reference to the gunman Amédy Coulibaly who killed a police officer and four people at the supermarket. Offensive as that posting was, does it rise to the level of a crime? Prosecutors evidently feel it does.

And so does so much else. The French justice ministry has issued a directive ordering police and prosecutors to crack down with the “utmost vigour” on anyone who is perceived as glorifying terrorism, or who expresses racist or anti-Semitic views. That’s a wide net, and these crimes can draw years in prison. Interestingly, given the mood in France, the ministry didn’t see the need to specifically order a crackdown on anti-Islamic incitement.”

The Pope, on a papal visit to the Philippines in the Pope mobile, just said there are limits to free expression, that you can’t disrespect peoples ‘faith'(s) and if, e.g., you call his mother names he will punch you in the face.

*note. In case you get any ideas, if you call my moma names … she will punch you in the face.

Absolutely. And when those limits are applied unfairly, hypocritically, mendaciously, in furtherance of discrimination against one group, or to justify wars of aggression, it is important to point that out.

According to what I’ve read, Mister Bergoglio did say it’s wrong to be disrespectful to other people’s faiths, but he immediately added free speech is essential, and killing someone for such an offence is inadmissible.

Blasphemy or no blasphemy, then ? That’s a decision for every individual to make in conscience, he implies as only Jesuits can.

Earlier, the UN’s general Assembly had already voted a resolution (non-binding in international law.) on “combating defaming religions” (A/RES/62/154), wherein every word mattered, the word ‘blasphemy’ did not appear, but the need to prevent discrimination against Islam in particular was stressed.http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/62/154

Bergoglio’s stance might indicate the Vatican is not willing to support any bill making blasphemy an official offence.

And Hitler once said “Good evening madam, lovely sunset isn’t it?”, and on another occasion, “Happy New Year, children!”

Not to compare Dieudonné with the guy with the mustache, but if you want to study whether or not he’s antisemitic, you have to quote his worst statements, not the most innocuous ones.

Here are a few, from his very first antisemitic years (he wasn’t always antisemitic, he became so when he wasn’t granted the money to make a documentary about slavery – which he thought was discrimination because Claude Lanzmann had been allowed to make “Shoah”. It never occurred to him that no matter how famous you are, you have to prove you’re capable before getting public monies. I met him once and he was very arrogant, not paying attention to all us lesser mortals who weren’t even television celebrities… and that was when the collective I belonged to had achieved something that attracted media attention and he had just shown up to steal the limelight.)

“Jews are a people who cheaply sold the Holocaust, who sold suffering and death to create a country and make money.”

“There’s a powerful lobby which has the monopoly of suffering and which doesn’t admit our existence… the Jewish lobby really hates blacks! Because in the collective subconsciousness, blacks bear the suffering, the Jews can’t accept it, because it’s their commerce!”

“Israheil !”

And don’t get me started on how his social world has changed, this guy who once agitated against the far-right Front National and now spends his time with their most revisionist elements.

He’s antisemitic all right.

The comment for which he is being prosecuted, though, was not antisemitic, that’s the strange part. There’s nothing all that wrong with what he tweeted and if the court is as independent from government as it’s supposed to be (and that’s an if in France, even if things are better than a few decades ago), he’ll be let off the hook.

I agree with Glenn that the French government really screwed up on this on.

“Jews are a people who cheaply sold the Holocaust, who sold suffering and death to create a country and make money.”

He does not seem to be denying the Holocaust or the suffering or death of the Jews in it, but seems to be making a point similar to Dr. Norman Finklestein about the Holocaust Industry, i.e. that certain political movements have opportunistically disgraced the memory of the suffering and those who were exterminated for cheap political gain and agendas of power. So, this may very well not be hate-speech.

“There’s a powerful lobby which has the monopoly of suffering and which doesn’t admit our existence… the Jewish lobby really hates blacks! Because in the collective subconsciousness, blacks bear the suffering, the Jews can’t accept it, because it’s their commerce!”

Similar to the above, the cheap exploitation of the memory of the holocaust for iniquitous political ends. And he said Jewish lobby hates blacks, not that Jews hate blacks. It’s not the best choice of words, but again, this is not so extreme to look at perceived rivalries of political power.

“Israheil !”

He’s equating Israel with Nazi Germany. If you look at the occupation, the ethnic cleansing, the “mowing the lawn” of civilians in Gaza, the Gestapo night raids, the torture, the propaganda, a rational argument could be made that this is a fair comparison, in kind, at least, if not (yet?) in degree. It’s not anti-semitic, because one could easily make the same characterization of the US currently. Amerikheil!

Israel does not get a pass on its current atrocities be constantly drawing on the memory of the holocaust. Unfortunately Isreal has done more to drain the well of goodwill for the Jewish people than anything else by far.

Norman Finkelstein criticizing Jews is not the same thing as Dieudonné doing the same. Finkelstein gets a pass. Not only is he Jewish, he’s clearly an academic, who’s not trying to incite, but to self-reflect. Mel Gibson, doesn’t get to criticize Jews. If he has issues, and wants to discuss something, he better come from some place other than where he’s been coming from. As someone who was born a Muslim, I get to criticize Muslims without being called an Islamophobe, but surely Bill Maher has to be a little more careful. It’s just the way it is, because these phobias exist.

Clearly there is such a thing as Antisemitism. In that light, while he should be allowed to say whatever he wants, I should be able to call Dieudonné an Antisemite, and please for the love of god, not drag Finkelstein into the same category as Dieudonné. But of course, you’re free to do so.

@Usuarioanonimo — Assuming the accuracy of the provided quotations, your analysis would be more persuasive if Dieudonne had attributed the exploitation of the Holocaust to “certain political movements,” as you put it, rather than to “Jews” as “a people.” As phrased by him, it is a strikingly ugly sentiment (albeit one he should be free to express).

To AthiestInChief (below): I don’t think it’s a useful standard at all to say that only somebody of a certain race, religion or ethnicity or whatever has a right to criticize their own group. If Mel Gibson’s or Bill Maher’s criticisms were accurate, they are just as valid as a Jew’s or a Muslim’s. If they are based on the basis of prejudice, then they are invalid because prejudice is a demonstrably stupid way to evaluate people. To say only a Texan has a right to criticize Texas, is to legitimize ad hominem arguments against the arguer instead of directly addressing the validity of the arguments.

To Gator90 (below): An Iraqi could say “the Americans invaded us”. This does not mean they have an irrational hate against all Americans so much as used sloppy language. Every quote can’t be held to the standard of a legal document.

I concede that the “Jews are a people…” is certainly getting into questionable territory, but, remember, these statements were being cited by Hans Bavinck as his “worst anti-Semitic” statements cherry-picked over a period of years in order to condemn the guy all-together as an anti-Semite. In that light it is not clear to me that, based just on what’s here, that the guy is expressing irrational hatred or rational, if sloppily worded, objections.

You make good points. But I gave only his earliest antisemitic comments and those were, believe it or not, from the period when he still at times associated with Jewish artists, met with representatives of the Jewish community and even visited Auschwitz. He has radicalized since and his friends are mostly to be found in the far-right Front National – including its former leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen who once called the Holocaust a “historical detail”. He has claimed that Jews ran the slave trade – not part of it, all of it – with America and has expressed the wish that the gas chambers had prevented the birth of one of his critics.

But anyway the point is not really there. The comment for which he is being prosecuted is not in my eyes antisemitic let alone impermissible; the prosecution is a ridiculous one.

@usuarioanonimo
You’re absolutely correct, that it is not useful to set standards for criticism. My point is, that since prejudice exists, if one is going to criticize somebody other than oneself, maybe s/he should be careful to point out legitimate grievances, as opposed to resorting to statements that only highlight traditional ideas of prejudice. That’s what I meant. Bill Maher or Mel Gibson should be able to say whatever they want, and great if they actually make valid points.

Also, this idea of criticizing Jews, or what is a Jew, or what is a Muslim, is meaningless, and is pure prejudice. One can have a position on the politics or policies of Israel, but that cannot be a criticism of Jews. It’s like criticizing Muslims for the insanity, or even the existence, of Saudi Arabia, and every vile thing that it does.

This guy is not criticizing. What exactly is he criticizing? He’s just being an asshole, of the worst kind, in my opinion.

I’m just trying to point out that if it’s not legitimate criticism of another, it’s probably bigotry. I mean, think about the statement that “Jews ran the slave trade.” No! Traders ran the slave trade. Some were Jewish, and some were not. Finkelstein wrote about the Holocaust industry, and talked about hucksters. He was talking about the hucksters who made millions, who were Jewish. He wasn’t talking about his mother, also Jewish, who only made $3000 for her time in a concentration camp. So let’s talk about the hucksters, and the terrorists, and the people of bad faith. Let’s not talk about Jews. Let’s not talk about Muslims. Let’s call that what it is, prejudice. Not legitimate criticism.

Thanks for the rational responses AthiestInChief and HansBavinck. I have no issues with any of your new statements. I don’t really know this Dieudonne guy. My suggestion is that all speech should always be legally protected (except the “fire!” in the crowded movie-house kind), but hate speech or offensive speech should be socially condemned, i.e. Charlie Hebdo have a perfect legal right to publish Mohammed’s pecker or whatever, but they should exercise some respect and restraint and not be a-holes about something that some people hold to be sacred. There should be standards of decency, but you can’t enforce them with a fine, a jail, a gun or a fatwah.

I don’t think I made my point clearly above. I want (almost) total legal protection of speech, but not social approval of all speech. All this celebration of printing this really offensive anti-Islamic stuff is not the answer. You don’t do it, not because of intimidation, but because it’s disrespectful and undignified in the first place, even though you have a perfect legal right to do so. Of course it will still happen, but there is something very childish and self-serving about this orgy of Islam-disparaging free speech.

It is not a good idea to take a few sentences here and there out of context to talk about a guy that has been demonized by many Over the years. He has never been found guilty of Anti-Semitism. I have listened to Dieudonne for over a decade from the time his partner was Elie Semouni, a sephardic jew .Many people will admit that he is the funniest comic of France whether they share his views or not. he has an ability with the language that many don’t have.The only people that are not laughing at his jokes are usually the people in power who feel under attack. He has been making jokes about blue, green and orange people for 2 decades or so. His saga started on a tv show in December 2003 when he made a sketch dressed up as a racist settler. On the same evening he started to received hateful messages. The show presenter sent him some insulting racists text messages and was condemned by the court .The next day he was on the front pages of a lot of newspapers etc. This was a guy who was playing in the largest theatres of Paris, like L’Olympia, the zenith and he was often on tv, suddenly he was uninvited, demonized, he even apologized in a show and wrote a sketch called “mes excuses”. ” my apologies”..Some were still not happy, over the years he started to provoke more as a response to all this censure and shows after shows were cancelled , death threats followed by more protests in front of theatres etc etc. For a time he was playng in a bus. He has even been once assaulted in Martinique by 2 zionists who were later arrested. Last year his one man show called “Le mur” “The wall” was cancelled in Nantes by special decree when the actual prime minister, Valls, the new “Franco”, who was then minister of Interior . his decision was influenced by powerful people who had complained that this show was antisemitic because of a hand gesture called “Quenelle” that in fact meant ” the hell with the corrupted system”, was compared to a nazi salute. Wow !! simply shocking!!. Followed a media massacre of the guy. His one man show is not anti semitic according to all of his worst critics who saw it and nothing hateful is mentioned in his sketch, judge by yourself it is on youtube. The government succeeded in Nantes that afternoon of January but Dieudonne’s team of lawyers fought other cancellations and won. The government actions created a lot of anger in France, there were days of protests by people who were simply fighting a tyranny and as a consequence his popularity increased tenfold . He even thanked the French government for the free publicity. It was great to see that some people were not just a bunch of brainwashed sheep, although a couple of public figures asked that he’d be hanged for this “quenelle”. It was sad though to see that a huge part of the media was supporting the government in his persecution. The government tried to close his Facebook acct ever since and succeeded in closing his youtube channel. He has been supported by a few courageous public figures who have stood by him and took the risks to also be ostracized They defended a guy who had caused no harm to anyone, simply dared to say things that 2 lobbies in France don’t want to hear. In France nowadays any public figure who criticizes Israel is categorized as anti-Semitic. It is ok to make fun of Islam and demonize Arabs. This is what is called ” deux poids , deux mesures” a law for the marginalized and one for the People in power. Thank you Glen for writing about this situation, your article is a breath of fresh air, as it has been impossible to find one single English newspaper last year who talked about the censure of this comic without repeating what the french state media were saying word by word. It is necessary that the world knows what Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite means in France nowadays.

@Usuarioanonimo – For the sake of argument, I will assume there is some ambiguity in the statement “Jews are a people who cheaply sold the Holocaust” (though I think it is quite clear). At this point, AtheistInChief’s idea about the credibility of the messenger comes into play for me. Thanks to a kindly provided link, I have seen Dieudonne dance about and shake his ass while singing gleefully about the Holocaust. As a result, I am not inclined to give him the benefit of any doubt or resolve any ambiguities in his favor. He is an anti-semite and world-class asshole. (Furthermore, I’ve seen no evidence that he is funny. At least Mel Gibson made some decent action movies.)

In your previous comment, you made the excellent point that one could easily compare the US to Nazi Germany, just as people compare Israel to Nazi Germany. But, interestingly, virtually no one ever does compare the US to Nazi Germany, whereas with Israel, it is a constant refrain. For this reason, when people (particularly non-Jews) make the comparison in regard to Israel, I tend to suspect an underlying malice.

There is a difference b/t the standard AthiestInChief first proposed (e.g. only a Jew can criticize Israel) and looking for additional evidence in a persons behavior to determine whether they are bigoted. The latter is of course valid, and what you said about gleefully singing about the Holocaust is more convincing evidence. He is very probably an anti-Semite and a world class a-hole. HoWeVeR, if he was doing it in a comedy routine, even if it wasn’t funny, we have to reserve some criticism. Isn’t this exactly what everybody is defending Charlie Hebdo for? That satire or humor gives you the right to do and say really offensive things? As horrendous as the Holocaust was, the world (ought) to operate on principles that can be applied fairly.

If people compare Israel or the US to Nazi Germany, one just has to look at the validity of the comparison. What’s true about it, and what’s not? Facile comparisons like this are never a perfect fit. But there may be elements to it that are true and useful for reflection. The biggest problem I have with the reactive claims of anti-Semitism is that it immediately dismisses the validity of any criticisms or anger into, by definition, irrational hatred. But (in terms of worldly values) there can be rational as well as irrational anger. A significant portion of the Palestinian and Arab (and global) anger at the Israelis is rational, i.e. about what Israel is doing.

So to always deflect this to anti-Semitic is worn quite thin. It is a terrible disservice to cry wolf. It’s just like how false rape accusations are so egregiously damaging to those who really do get raped.

I hope I don’t come off as anti-Semitic. It’s actually quite the opposite. I hold the Jewish people to a higher standard because of the excellent ones I’ve had the privilege of knowing and because I would aspire for them, after what they went through as a people, that their state would never ethnically cleanse, torture, massacre, degrade and harass, etc. a vulnerable group. It is certainly very understandable that the Jewish nation suffered an enormous trauma that it is still suffering from. But what Israel has become is also enormosly disappointing. I wonder if this sort of disappointment or frustration (i.e. of all people to behave this way, the Jewish nation) is at least part of what you suspect as underlying malice when you see Israel singled out for criticism.

@Usuarioanonimo
However I came off, I never meant to say that only Jews can criticize Israel. I criticize Israel all the time, and sometimes when I’m pissed, quite vehemently.

My point in this case was that this guy is not criticizing. He’s making blanket prejudicial statements. I’m with you, when you say that calling everything anti-semitic has worn thin of late. But that doesn’t mean you can’t call it anti-Semitism when it actually is that. Also, his act is a bit different from the magazine’s. Putting on a Black-face is no longer satire. I can do it if I wish, but it would be in poor taste, because it would probably be universally considered racist. That is how this guy feels to me.

For my part, I give Israel no quarter. But I’m careful how I talk, and think about Jews. There is just a history involved, and it cannot be ignored. Same thing with Blacks. There is just a history involved. So saying this like “Jews ran the slave trade” and not mentioning that there were Muslims involved in it as well, and blacks involved in it, and Whites benefiting, seems particularly pernicious to me. I’m not saying I’m going to ban his speech, but I will definitely do everything in my power to discredit such a source. It’s useless to society, and unhelpful.

I fully understand your frustrations with the State of Israel, but I’d suggest that you think about Israel as a state, with the motivations of a state, and the political problems of a state, which no doubt can lead to bad things, but a state, nonetheless. I don’t even look at Israel as a Jewish State. If it were a Martian State in that region, with similar politics, it would be behaving the same way. And that Martian state would be trying to get every Martian on earth to support that state. Doesn’t mean you blame all Martians for the actions of that state. And that is what most of us tend to do when talking about Israel. We involve every Jewish person on the planet. And every Jewish person that I went to school with, or worked with, had nothing to do with Israel. Just my personal experience.

You don’t come off as anti-semitic. But with that said, your notion of holding Jews and Israel to a “higher standard” is quite bizarre to me. We have to be better than gentiles because we’ve suffered at their hands? Should black Americans be held to a higher standard than white Americans? Should Armenians be held to a higher standard than Turks?

Israel’s ethical obligation to treat people humanely is no greater (or less) than that of the US, or France, or Ecuador.

Certainly there is ample reason for anger and disappointment at Israel’s moral failings. For those emotions to be magnified among gentiles based on Israel’s status as the “Jewish state” strikes me as irrational and unfair.

As a “conscious Jew” (to borrow a stinging phrase from upthread), I am heartbroken by what Israel has become (and perhaps always was). But that’s my heartbreak, not yours.

@AthiestInChief – re “only Jews can criticize Israel” I was pointing to your first comment, not where you clarified (at least for me) your position. I also agree that there is indeed still anti-Semitism. I never meant to imply that that was not a component of reality. That was what was meant by the cry wolf rape analogy: the abuse of it actually hurts those that suffer from real instances of anti-Semitism. I also don’t hold every Jewish person responsible for Israeli state actions. I don’t think I said that and didn’t mean to imply that either. The most interesting question you raise is: Is Israel a Jewish state? I think coincides with Gator90’s post, so I’ll address it below.

@Gator90 – I didn’t mean to say that Jews or Israel should be held to higher moral standards as a matter of law or anything. I was just expressing my personal irrational biases to suggest an alternative underlying attitudes to why you suspect Israel is singled out: basically irrational respect rather than irrational hatred. I do realize it is irrational and that it violates my own conscious beliefs on the subject. Of course I don’t believe that Jews are inherently superior to the rest of humanity. That would be a very pernicious view in itself.

I do dispute very much your dividing the world into Jews and Gentiles and reserving the right to make ethical judgments or to have heartbreak about Israel to Jews only, conscious or not. I do not see the basis in that at all.

You contest my calling Israel “the “Jewish State”” as irrational and unfair. I see that I certainly did say that. As I explained above in this post I certainly do not hold all Jews responsible for Israel’s actions (I don’t think I said this, but if I implied it I apologize). I don’t even hold all Israeli Jews responsible. I know many Americans who are mostly powerless to oppose the psychopathic behavior of the US gov’t). But is it fair to disassociate completely Israel from the Jewish nation? Israel and its American supporters could talk about Judeo-Christian values (read non-Muslim) when convenient, and deny any Judeo component when convenient. It is my understanding that Israel was founded for the explicit purpose of providing a homeland for Jews, has preferential immigration policies for Jewish people, gets a lot of political and financial support from Jews abroad, has preferential laws for Jewish citizens, wants to declare itself a Jewish state, etc.

In the end I think you are both right. I think it is an unfair principle to associate Israel with Judaism or the Jewish nation broadly. The only caveat to this is that it seems that Israel itself is one of the biggest purveyors of this association (such as selling the Holocaust) when it cynically serves its purposes. In order not to have it both ways I think Israel needs to disassociate from the Jewish nation and become a secular democracy. Fair?

I agree Israel should become a secular democracy (with the West Bank and Gaza included). The whole concept of a “Jewish state” is deeply and inherently flawed. Eventually it will come undone; the questions are how long it will take and how much blood will be spilled in the meantime.

The Holocaust, for many Jews, remains an open wound. Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is a great way to rub salt in it, precisely because, as you suggest, Israel cannot be completely disassociated from Jewry. I think many (though by no means all) of the people who make such comparisons are fully aware of this and take unseemly pleasure in it.

I didn’t divide the world into Jews and gentiles. Several thousand years of history did that.

This is topical. From 2013. After saying that Dieudonné should have an upcoming show cancelled because he is anti-Semitic and racist and will cause unrest, Clothilde Chapuis, when asked about Charlie Hebdo, says,

dieudonné explained that the meaning for ” i am charlie coulibaly ” was : he is only doing comedy like charlie hebdo ( from which he knew some people ), but feel like he is treated like coulibaly. that’s the most obvious meaning so I guess he will be okay.

Today, the French president made a speech stressing the fact French Muslims have “as many rights and as many duties as any other citizen”, adding they “need to be protected”. In other words, the whole “Charlie” com operation of the French media is backfiring already. Failing to understand the obvious link between last week’s events and France’s policy in the Middle East, he also reiterated the West should have bombed Syria in 2013, after the alleged chemical attack by the Assad forces. Useful to know might be that there was a time when Foreign minister Fabius officially supported the al Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria). In its December 14, 2012 edition, French daily Le Monde reported Fabius’ comment on the US decision to place al Nusra on the terrorist watchlist : it’s silly, he said, “because, on the ground, they’re doing a good job”. Then, all of a sudden, in May 2013, he proposed to do just that (consider them as a terrorist organization). Here’s what last sunday’s freedom-of-speech demonstrators should be asking : in how far has France financed its own demise ? Where the AK47 assault rifles used against the cartoonists part of the stock France had provided the “Syrian rebels” with ? Not a word in the French press about that, of course…

What a joke….aren’t these the very people who were defending the anti-religionists, insulting everyone. They have to be kidding…of course….par for the course. “Do what I say…not what I do. It is too..tool..too much!

Although there are important differences between “East” and “West,” I’m not a fan of reducing what are actually diverse and complex cultures into those monolithic terms. They are convenient, yet ultimately simplistic, concepts to think with because they play on stereotypes rather than reality.

The problem with Greenwald’s argument here is that he implies the west’s approval and even affection for Charlie Hebdo’s content. But that just isn’t true. The actual content of the publication makes (and has always made) establishment publications like The New York Times terribly uncomfortable. And they’ve been essentially anti-racist. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/11/1357057/-The-Charlie-Hebdo-cartoons-no-one-is-showing-you). Now that the publication has vowed to continue their editorial policy (and their lampooning of religious fanatics) everybody’s looking for a graceful exit. (See also, http://academeblog.org/2015/01/14/the-je-suis-charlie-movement-ends-wednesday-2/) But Greenwald is right that the “free speech” elegies when speaking of Charlie Hebdo are hollow and false coming from people who prosecute “hate speech” whenever they find it convenient to their political agenda and never when it’s inconvenient.

An absolutely brilliant article in every sense of that word. Additionally, well argued, beautifully written and to anyone other than the intellectually challenged or brain-dead undeniably wholly convincing. I’m tempted to fall about myself in uncontrollable laughter when France and free speech are used in any synonymous sense; since the two are diametrically opposed to and in conflict with each other. And hate crimes legislation in France, and especially in relation to the European holocaust – not the only one historically carried out even by Germany that implemented TWO in what’s now NAMIBIA that preceded at the start of the 20th Century the European, and setting aside just temporarily the Trans-Atlantic Slave Holocaust that lasted not for 6 years but almost FOUR CENTURIES and in which France was a major player (Who with a conscience and a true knowledge of history can forget HAITI?) – has everything to do with the collective guilt and nagging demons of consecutive French regimes, the French authorities per se and the overwhelming majority of the French populace. For it was they who massively informed on, rounded up and sent to their horrific deaths millions of their own UNTERMENSCHEN (Undesirables); far more than the Germans managed to do, and with a rabid enthusiasm and passion that startled even the German NAZIS who’d initiated this policy of liquidation. Unsurprising then that the French would dearly love for the rest of the world to forget their barbaric and NAZI streak and encompassing DNA in this regard, and to this end have fraudulently jumped on their sanctimonious soapbox to claim the moral high ground which they have no claim to; whatsoever! And their arrest of Dieudonne for his innocuous and satirical tweet and expressing his same riggt to freedom of expression while the same hypocrites are in the full glare of the global spotlight claiming to uphold free speech yet being racially selective about it says all that one needs to know about French hypocrisy and blatant double-standards. That’s what I think, anyway! Professor Dr. Stanley Collymore.

France introduced a law concerning opinions on ‘terrorism’ (hope they managed to define that word in detail) in November 2014.
This law effectively outlaws public comment condoning ‘terrorist’ acts. Includes press, audiovisual, and internet:

That’s ridiculous. CH savaged Catholics too, and often in much worse terms than Muslims.
This guy said he identified with the guy who massacred as many Jews as he could. This is arguably an incitement to race murder. CH, for all its puerile antics, never did anything like this
I’m against this creep’s arrest. it makes him into some kind of martyr. But it cannot be compared to what CH ever wrote, even in its must insanely visious.

Between this and the other free speech criminalization article, I think I’m going to have to stop commenting altogether. How can we trust some unsupervised r1bs to be able to gauge sarcasm, or a joke? You ever try telling a joke to a cop? What about a simple typo or predictive text error that completely changes the meaning of a statement?
Not to mention a hacker simply posting something in your name; and if they claim they have the ability to detect if it was a hacker then those are the same people who have the ability to bypass detection.
Frankly what concerns me the most is that I don’t even understand what Dieudonné was saying. It could have been interpreted so many different ways.

Do you have to stop just because a handful of lunatics attack a few people? That is the question for Charlie Hebdo, and it is the question for all those on the Internet who see cases like this, Justin Carter, Barrett Brown, Mark Marek, etc. Prosecutors who ignore the universal and inalienable rights of man have no basis in law or reason — their attacks are as rare and unfounded as those of al-Qaida, and have precisely the same legal and moral validity. Unfortunately, cowardice isn’t actually a virtue, and while just about everyone has a limit to how brave they can be, I don’t think this should be too much for most.

I think you’re unfamiliar with my commentary. The context of my statement is based on other things I’ve written.
Dieudonné’s comment looked like something Mother Teresa would’ve said, like he was saying “we’re all victims” or something. It’s not in itself even intelligible.
All these people charged with typing one wrong word were obviously unaware it was problematic, and little racist groups of r1bs are the last people on earth who should be in position to monitor and charge them for it.

Great, about time. Put these nazis where they belong. Those who think that these nazis should be free to spread their hatred, feel free to move to mihammedanistan with them. Cause here we do not need them.

Personally I find quite difficult to have the right to insult someone in the name of the freedom of the press/speech…especially if I am aware that what I am saying or writing is going to offend someone…I hate what the Israeli government is doing in Palestine, does that justify me in supporting antisemitic cartoons? …Mah!!
Definetly I am more sacco than Charlie…

But then…I also find the ‘sniper’ a criminal and not an American hero…I seem to have different set of values than some of the commentator here…

Quite right about Israel and what they are doing to Palestine and it’s people.
The hypocrisy has a very high stench to it.
Mind you this comedian arrested in France has the look of a Moslem… nuff said.
Try writing anything detrimental about Israel in the ABC forums. It will not get posted.
I call that censorship.

Go tell to some of my ( especially french ) friends giving me the cold shoulder because I say openly that I am not Charlie…there seems to be a sort of short circuit in their minds…I am not Charlie=I support the killing of the cartoonist.
This sort of mental laziness makes the debate a bit difficult and frustrating…

Well…you just insulted Chris Kyle by calling him “not an American hero”. I don’t know how you square difficulty with a right to insult someone by insulting someone in the very same post (your “But then…” caveat granted). Personally I think it’s good that insulting people is protected. If you disagree and your views were made law, I guess you’d have to turn yourself in to the insult-police for your insult against Chris Kyle.

Not to mention the insult you just made against Israel (“I hate what the Israel government is doing in Palestine”). And in the new free speech police state, the word “hate” will surely land you on a watchlist or jail. May want to use a different word. “Disagree”? “Dislike”? Might still be deemed an insult. Maybe “fully respect their actions but would caution against overdoing it”. Then again there, the law may focus on the word “but”. Disagreement would be insult.

My personal opinion is that Chris Kyle is an immoral murderer. My point was that Iata insulted him, which in Iata’s own view, is perhaps something that Iata should go to jail over. (and it doesn’t seem to matter whether the insult is accurate.)

@Dave: Chris Kyle is not an American hero…where is the insult?
And where this I said or imply that people insulting other should go to jail ?
now I am going to insult you by writing that you also seem to be taking short cuts…
:-)

If to say that Chris Kyle is not an American hero is to offend Chris ( or am I offending you? ) then I should withdraw from the discussion as I do not know what to offend means anymore…someone has to rewrite the word in the dictionary…

Sometime – unfortunately – the word ‘hate’ is used just as a figure of speech, but I accept your point, so again :
I deeply disagree with the policy of Israel in the territories ( see I do not even write ‘occupied territories’…) does that justify me in supporting antisemitic cartoons? ( is it any better ? )

…I hope at least my punctuation was not offensive of the English ( American ) language…
You must be an interesting person to converse with…
:-)

I wonder if Chris Kyle considers himself an “American Hero.” I doubt it. I can’t come up with the name of a single one of our “heroes” who, when asked, declared themselves to be heroic. If someone doesn’t consider themselves to be a hero, is it an insult to them to say they aren’t?

Good god, what kind of stupidity is this? That was the worst attempt at an equivalency argument I’ve ever heard. This man Greenwald appears to have no idea what the founding principles of democratic societies were. I mean, he seems to really BELIEVE what he’s saying, and he was educated in American schools!

Are you, stanley21, aware that you didn’t explain anything at all about what you’ve based your “good god” explosion on? What, specifically, are the “founding principles of democratic societies” you are failing to describe or define, and how, exactly, then did “this man Greenwald” show to you that he has “no idea” what those “founding principles” are?

Great post. This is the common attitude in the west. Insult fashionable groups such as Jews and Blacks, go to prison and be harassed. Insult demonized groups such as Muslims and Asians, a parade will be held in your honor. You see this kind of hypocrisy especially in white liberal circles. I can give many examples but just recently after the Hebdo attacks there were those who called for genocide of all 1.6 billion Muslims on the NPR comment boards. Those who complained had their posts deleted. The original post advocating genocide remained uncensored. I complained to the moderators and then ombudsmen with no results. I’ve seen other posts advocating for the genocide for other groups such as Chinese and all the comments complaining about the racism were deleted while the original offending post still remain. Then the west has the audacity to criticize countries like China for violating free-speech. I live in China. I have never seen anyone sent to prison for “hate speech” or for a view they expressed. The west is much worse in violating people’s right to free expression than China or many other countries they denounce as lacking in liberty. Free speech in the west is a sham.

Good god, what kind of ignorance is this? That was the worst attempt at an equivalency argument I’ve ever heard. Does Gleen Greenwald really have no idea what the founding principles of democratic societies were? I mean, he seems to really BELIEVE what he’s saying. And he was educated in American schools! wtf?

America has many different school systems. None of its countries are democracies; most are republics with democratic trappings. The schools Greenwald went to, according to wiki, were in locations where none of the levels of government were democracies.

You totally missed the point. In USA and many other places, it is practiced as legal and acceptable by the vast majority, to incite the murder of many thousands of innocent people, as long as those people are Muslims in foreign lands. It is also practiced as legal and acceptable by the vast majority to carry out those murders, as long as one does it as a member of a government organization.

I would rather say the terrorist is a puppet controlled by Zionists and former colonial masters . The tactic of divide and rule has always worked ! Let the fear prevail until it has matured for a new war as industrialized countries arms industry goes around , the oil flow in and Zionists gets its 4000 years old religion promise and dream of the Great Israel in the Middle East for the chosen people realized through divide and rule tactics of their!
The First World War did not give the Zionists what they were after . Then came Theodor Herzl and founding political Zionism and created his first puppet Hitler, that way they got their own created world map, the Zionists and Rothschild made a contract to economic and political help England against Hitler, in return they would receive land of Palestine as England then had as its colony . After ww2 they created the United Nations with five veto votes as a safety valve for themselves and gave the Zionists the land of Palestine under the contract between England and the Zionists and Rotchschild. But it is the land of Great Israel their 4000 years old religion requires them to have as the chosen people, and that by sacrificing the Goyim ( non- Jewish = animals according to their holy books) by cutting the throats of those on the holy land Great Israel! So this is just the beginning!
IF YOU’VE GOT HATE FOR JEWS OR MUSLIMS IN YOUR HEART OR YOU ARE A FEMINIST AND HATE MEN OR MALE CHARACTERISTICS, CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE A VICTIM OF MIND CONTROL, THE ULTIMATE TERROR!

Something no-ones seems to have pointed out so far is that non Muslims may be shocked about ‘rude’ caricatures of Mohammed, so feel some kind of ‘understanding’ of why fanatics might react so strongly. But at base, ANY depiction of Mohammed is not allowed, and considered blasphemy.

And the original ‘publish or be damned/killed’ caricatures – in CH or elsewhere – were reacting against THAT self-censorship, against the “right to not be offended”, they definitely weren’t motivated by a desire to piss off Muslims.

Another thing I find disingenuous of GG is that in his ‘other blasphemous cartoons’ post, most of the Jewish-related ones are mostly definitely NOT blasphemous, but related to Jews and politics, and Protocols-related conspiracy theory stuff. Whereas the initial CH cartoon he posts is 100% blasphemous, but says NOTHING disparaging about Arabs, or Muslims.

It seems to me that a lot of blurring of distinctions is taking place, mostly by denying that motivation or context have any importance or meaning. As some other commenters have pointed out, both above and below the line here there is a lot of “I, an American with little or no knowledge of French or France, will now proceed to pass judgement on a situation about which I know little or nothing”.

Heck, it’s even legal, period. This is one of the most misused, and patently false, restatement of law, in that Schenck was overturned years later, but more importantly the case law on the 1st Amendment generally moved way past it.

Free speech is really quite simple: everything is allowed. Cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Robert Maplethorpe’s photo of a crucifix in a jar of urine, cartoons of hooked-nose Jews eating babies, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Hustler Magazine’s satire of Jerry Fallwell having sex with his mother in an outhouse – in a free society it’s all allowed. Sorry Mr. Greenwald, freedom of speech is an absolute right – not some minor piece of legislation that journalists like you can chip away at and qualify to fit your notions of political correctness. Voltaire and the other leaders of the French Enlightenment understood this, as did the authors of the Bill of Rights. It’s sad that two hundred and fifty years later, people like you still don’t get it.

As I read through the comments and the squabbling with those who appear bent on TI’s destruction, there surely doesn’t seem to be a lack of “Free Speech”, at least here there doesn’t. However, when listening to paid commentators and their “expert” guests stirring the “FEAR” pot, the impression I’m left with is one of “fear” that we could soon start seeing our “Free Speech” rights slipping away under the guise of heightened security. Speak up people while we still have that right. The authors of our Constitution argued over whether listing our rights was a good idea or was even necessary. To them it was self evident and went without saying. Their wisdom won the day and we now at least have a document to which we can refer when questions arise as they are today. Our leaders today cannot be counted on to do the right thing and must be forced by the people to do so. Can the people find their backbones, re-engage their minds, and start participating in their own future? As a group “We the People” have abdicated our responsibilities in allowing a “long train of abuses” to become the norm. Recently I have met several people who have decided to leave the USA in search of a better society. None of them are leaving to find work but have become disillusioned with what the USA has become. Not so sure that’s the solution but it might be for them. I don’t recognize this country anymore.

AMEN! The current operating form of this country ( USA ) is not the country of old. We The People have allowed us to deviate to a post constitutional way of life. It’s going to get worse. I challenge anyone to determine the number of laws they live under both statutory and regulatory in every level of government. The total number will probably be between 15-20,000? Then determine how many is personally known. At best people personally know of 5 laws. So what’s the point of the 19,995 other laws if people don’t know they exist? Actually, they shouldn’t exist. This country equally oppresses people, and that is unconstitutional.

How does a person express support the killers of innocents at the supermarket? What kind of person would have anything but contempt for these terrorists. Shame on this so called “comedian” who is a demagogue and a supporter of murder.

The big problem, Mr Greenwald, is that you are being totally delusional about the current state of affairs of nations and religions. The main problem facing the Muslims is really not about being able to post whatever they want in Facebook. Posting and liking in Facebook really should be the least of their priorities. Their main problem is providing food and shelter to millions of people belonging to their faith. What are they doing about it? Do they sit down and discuss ways that they can provide a better quality of life for themselves? Do they tell each other that they will stop killing each other? Do they tell the people who supply them weapons that they don’t want weapons, and instead would like to have food and medicines? If they don’t do it for themselves, then who will? Do you really think that giving this cartoon Dieudonné all his rights to post his thoughts, that too in a worthless forum as Facebook, will contribute to the greater good of his Muslim community?

Unless Muslims get their priorities right neither Allah nor his Charlie Messenger can do them any good, peace be upon all of them. Mr Sufi here is one of the very few sane voices that speak on their behalf, and if they were to listen to him instead of the likes of Baker Al Bugdaddy, they would definitely find a solution for themselves. Once they establish some peace they can then start thinking about having more freedom.

So, Mr Greenwald, please stop inciting them, whatever be your motive. I see that you folks have direct access to those thugs. Call them up and advise them what is best for them. You guys have stopped publishing Mr Snowden’s files. No worries – just do the world a favor and get those blokes to stop their own killing. Then perhaps the rest of the world will start respecting them and stop killing them and their freedom.

Your comment sounds as though Muslims voluntary choose to live in perpetual poverty and violence. “What are they doing about it? Do they sit down and discuss ways that they can provide a better quality of life for themselves?” Let’s ignore the severe repression and violence inflicted on the vast population of Muslims by authoritarian governments–vast majority of which are militarily, economically and diplomatically kept in power by the US and European countries.

Speaking of delusional, are you ignorant, willfully or otherwise, of the destruction wrought by American hegemonic crimes in the middle east and elsewhere? Not even to mention the cultural and societal disintegration, which is obviously part of the overall scheme to dominate the area (and the world!). And then all the horrific carnage. You’re speaking from your plush armchair from inside your fat cat ivory tower about matters you can’t even fathom, and you’re even sanctimonious about it? ‘Merikkkans. a depraved culture of morons indeed…

Ouch! i know you are a bit butt-hurt when facts are rubbed into your face. BUT when you ask the Muslims to get rid of poverty, terrorism and to get food and medicines.
My question to you is WHO is responsible for it in the first place, it is you guys, America and its European stooges who is the garb of freedom and establishing democracy has been placing puppet dictators and autocratic regimes to meet their own ends. After WW2, it was the west who in thirst for Oil resources assassinated the Saudi King Faisal, tried to install the puppet kingdom of Pahlavis in Iran, snatched Palestine and carved out the terrorist state of Israhell!! and to also interfered in the politics of Egypt, Iraq, Libya where people were still recovering from the European colonization which robbed them off their resources in the first place. In the seventies due to YOUR cold war. The NATO played politics in the middle-east to counter Russia. Afghanistan was used as a battlefield between Russia and USA, which in turn devastated the country more. And don’t you dare tell me that Uncle Sam was doing it for Peace, Oh Hell No! It had its own agendas for all this and didn’t gave a shit about civilians who were killed in your wars. Today the middle-east is a hell hole because of you guys where still politics are being played in Egypt, Libya, Syria and the GCC Kings are obeying Uncle Sam orders and the masses are suffering.
So Chuck my suggestion is unless the west stop interfering in the middle-east for their own vested interests there will be no peace and your people will be targeted. That is truth of life, stop living in denial as if you guys had nothing to do with it.

What on Earth are you talking about? Is there a food shortage in Indonesia or something, that is being exacerbated by the Muslim worldview? A food shortage in Yemen? Do you think Muslim terrorists are murdering Westerners in order to provide food and shelter to their local communities??

So why are they killing people? Some of the ISIS guys are actually westerners who are killing the local people there. And I was referring to Iraq Syria and Afghanistan when I mentioned food and shelter, not the other countries you have listed. Wonder why you left out Saudi Arabia.

Famine is almost always the result of political hatred, not a genuine failure to produce food. Even in the U.S. we saw this for a moment, after Katrina, when Geraldo Rivera and the Anarchist Black Cross were on the ground handing out supplies, while FEMA just couldn’t seem to manage to do anything, and the local cops were too busy shooting blacks for trying to cross the Danziger Bridge — for which they STILL cannot be prosecuted, most recently because it is supposedly ‘unethical’ for a prosecutor to comment about publicly known facts in the case anonymously in a newspaper chat forum. But all famine in the U.S. is like that – often it is literally illegal to hand out food to the homeless – and the exact same thing is true whether you look at Haiti or Somalia or any other godforsaken place where the de facto government stops and steals assistance to keep it from getting to the wrong people.

But the genocidal hatred for groups of people is a product of ignorance, and ignorance is the product of a failure of information or thought, and that is a product of censorship. When people think carefully about a matter, they usually still disagree strongly about what beliefs people hold, but they hate the belief and not the person, strive to educate rather than eradicate.

Wherever censorship rears its head, no matter how grotesque the material, no matter how trivial the penalty, the result is the same: people die. This is true even when states prohibit child pornography and create a multi-billion dollar black market in kidnapping children and videotaping their abuse. It is certainly going to be true when you try to sow fear and alienation in a vast religious community that, despite the deficiency of its belief system, has been almost entirely peaceful and even showed up as life-savers in the Hebdo-related standoffs. This should be so obvious that it is hard not to conclude that the French authorities are deliberately sowing the wind in the hope that they can tame the whirlwind. If they drive Muslims and other less-than-white Frenchmen to the point where there is an attack every day, think of all the money the top security people will make! Yeah, it sounds stupid, but my country invaded Iraq with a plan to rewrite their copyright law so they’d be paying more royalties on old movies. One thing security people never seem to lack is a hubris beyond all expectations.

Their main problem is providing food and shelter to millions of people belonging to their faith. What are they doing about it? Do they sit down and discuss ways that they can provide a better quality of life for themselves? Do they tell each other that they will stop killing each other? Do they tell the people who supply them weapons that they don’t want weapons, and instead would like to have food and medicines?

Perhaps this should apply to the religion known as American Exceptionalism™

but remember: jews are “powerless” and perpetual “victims”. i’d elaborate but since i’m not behind 7 proxies i’ll leave that to someone using the tor browser (y’know, the one that helps to avoid censorship and overbearing government power.)

as for the “jews are a race/ethnicity” line of “reasoning”, i’ll leave the ideological and anthropological decimation of those fucking idiots to shlomo sand and/or anyone else with an intellect surpassing a gibbon with a head injury. “hebrew” or “ashkenazi”, fine. those can be seen as ethnicities. “jewishness” is a culture and judaism is just another anachronistic abrahamic cult with writings lifted from roughly 500 other esoteric sources. kinda like christianity and islam.

also: fuck the charlie writers and cartoonists. there’s a reason the rag was about to go under right before this mess started. the art sucks, the “jokes” aren’t even deserving of the title and the whole thing has the same stench of bourgeois liberalism that wafts from the ever-open jaws of bill maher and sam harris on an hourly basis. the more cynical side of me wonders if the remaining staff are basking in the free publicity.

of course, as i’m writing this jon stewart is doing his usual, milquetoast opening bit and has called dieudonné “anti-semitic” roughly 400000 times so far. not sure about the actual number. i’m not a scientist. if you believe in “free speech”, that’s fine. just remember it’s useless when most people are too fucking insipid to take advantage of it. otherwise the term has a much depth as “hate crime” or “terrorism”.

I fail to understand what the French actually wish to achieve. Any idiot columnist is allowed to publish a “hate” article on Muslims or ridicule the Prophet of Islam and gets away under the umbrella of freedom of speech. On the other hand if Muslims of France or the world protest in a civilised manner they get booked for promoting hate and terror. Law can’t be two pronged. Snake’s tongue is; specially the one who initiate hate. First we catch the culprit who started the trouble, then we take care of those who get involved. I think that’s the basic principle, but I am not French and don’t know much about the country either.

Oh, brother. Greenwald is fast becoming the terrorist Aplogist-in-Chief. Dieudonne is a racist Jew-hater who has been charged; Charlie Hebdo were political commentators who were brutally murdered.

So odd that these killings, and the subsequent protests against them, provoke from Greenwald all kinds of venomous attacks against Western governments, white racism, etc. — not because these things are wrong, but to show the killers weren’t so bad. It’s the essence of apologism — and it’s sickening.

Is there any proof or primary source that the reason why he was arrested was because of that particular Facebook post and nothing else? I never used to be this skeptical but the internet viral media likes to make shit up.

Our own deranged Zionist, CraigSummers, has been jumping the shark tonight, almost as entertainingly as Alan Dershowitz did a few nites ago on the Lawrence O’Donnell Show. The slimy, lying Dersh got his tale handed to him by O’Donnell:

Towards the end of their discussion, O’Donnell pivoted to the Paris shootings, mentioning that his guest had earlier appeared on NewsmaxTV for a segment that has been billed online as “Alan Dershowitz: France reaped what they sowed in the Paris attack.”
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Dershowitz denied that is what he said, but O’Donnell confronted him with an actual quotation about France: “They reward every terrorist.” From there, the pair got into a heated argument.
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“It’s a crazy thing to say,” the MSNBC host declared in a clip first flagged by BreitbartTV. “They do not reward every terrorist do you want to say they’ve rewarded a few terrorists? Are you really going to sit here and say they rewarded every terrorist?”
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“Virtually every terrorist who has been convicted and sent to prison in Paris has either gotten out,” the law professor pushed back. “[France] voted for Palestinian statehood for a country that was built on terrorism. They have done everything to avoid joining the fight on terrorism. I feel terrible for these people.”
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That set O’Donnell off further, as he noted that many countries have supported such statehood. “So most countries in the world are Alan Dershowitz bad countries?” he asked.
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Dershowitz replied: “Terrorism is rewarded. Europe is part of the problem. France is part of the problem. I feel terribly sorry for the victims, but France is part of the problem. Maybe this will give them a wake-up call and have them join the war against terrorism rather than becoming part of the problem of facilitating and rewarding terrorism.”
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O’Donnell warned his guest in return: “I will advise you, just for the credibility of your own judgment on anything else you ever say publicly, don’t ever say that France rewards every terrorist.”
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Through the crosstalk and shouting, Dershowitz said, “Sir, I don’t need your advice on this issue,” just before the segment ended due to time constraints. O’Donnell expressed his regret that the law professor had failed to apologize for his statements.

Fucking double standard people of West. Syria’s ambassador to UN very well said that when ISIS attacks Syria, they are called fighters and when they attack France, they become terrorists. Bloody hypocrites French people.

You do realize that France is not part of the USA Glenn? And do you realize that means that they get to define freedom of speech the way they want, and you don’t?

Do you realize that their definition of freedom of speech includes criticizing IDEAS, not PEOPLE? Anti-semitism is illegal because it’s about racial features they can’t change. Criticizing ideas is fair game because they’re mental constructs. This tool led them from the tyranny of the kings and the catholic church. It is as important to them as the second amendment is to your country. So perhaps get off your high horse, and learn something about the culture you are so quick to blame.

Dieudonne isn’t a clever French comedian, trying to make us think about some societal problem, he’s widely considered to be racist, and that is what he was arrested for. He’ll go to trial, and if he wins his case, good for him. But simply because he looks like a minority doesn’t give him a “get of jail free” card.

Charlie Hebdo was making fun of Islamic fundamentalism, because they make it even harder for a country like France to absorb the largest muslim and jewish population in Europe. If you think they’re doing badly, remember the last few centuries of European extermination of other cultures. It shouldn’t be that hard… 1999 in Yugoslavia.

You are a rabid self hating Jew and a far, far left extremist. This “comedian” who you defend wrote that he feels like a terrorist, he invented this inverse Nazi salute, he is actively inciting hate and attacks on Jews, yet you defend this, while taking offence at criticism of the Muslim religion. You are psychopath and a sham.

You insist that Jews get special treatment. Really now? Persecution of Jews in Europe far surpass that of Muslims in just plain numbers, let alone proportionate to their populations. How many murderous terror attacks have Muslims suffered in Europe?

You’re reading the french events (including Dieudonné) from an american point of view. You do not contextualize. This is not journalism. Here’s what’s wrong in your article :

– Freedom of speech in France is not absolute, and has never been. Insults, diffamation, supporting killings and terrorism, antisemitism, islamophobia, homophobia, etc, are all reprehensible under a 1881 law. You really have to understand this to understand what’s going on here. Yes, French justice has the power to determine what is and isn’t hate speech. Not the government, justice. And any law that tried to favor a group at the expense of another has been censored by the Constitutional Council, just like the law on the armenian genocide.

– We walked on sunday for freedom of speech, not for the freedom to hate and discriminate. Charlie Hebdo, like Dieudonné, was convicted a few times for “insult” (including towards the “harkis”, a muslim community). Not all of us were “Charlie” (I’m not), but rather marching for the right to be insolent within the limits established by law. It was a reminder, not a free pass for intolerance. Because we were marching for freedom of speech doesn’t mean we support any speech, especially the ones punishable by law. Just take a look at the French part of the internet for a moment, and google “je ne suis pas Charlie”.

– Dieudonné’s show was forbidden because the State Council (highest juridiction) knew its content (he had already played it in several towns) and deemed it hateful. That’s how it works here, and has been for decades.

– Antisemitism and islamophobia are equally condemned by justice. 2014 saw a huge number of prosecutions, including political figures, for hate speech towards the muslim and arab communities.

– All the anti-muslims events that followed the Paris shootings were seriously condemned, all major political protagonists called not to confuse muslims and radical islamists.

– The arrest of Dieudonné isn’t a “threat to free speech”, it’s French justice doing its job to delimitate the boundaries of free speech. Just like it was doing its job when Charlie Hebdo was prosecuted numerous times. You are one-sided on this.

– “That’s because last week’s celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support.” 99 percent of the people who marched on sunday didn’t read Charlie Hebdo, and didn’t have a clue what was inside the pages. And yeah, of course the 4 million people on the streets were anti-muslim, sure. That’s absurd.

– “Think about the “defending terrorism” criminal offense for which Dieudonné has been arrested. Should it really be a criminal offense ?” Again, you fail to understand how French justice and French free speech work. It has to be, and always has been, it’s not something new for us, it’s part of our identity as a republican country.

– Bernard-Henri Lévy is considered a fraud by a large number of people. Please investigate before saying something like “France’s most celebrated public intellectual”.

CraigSummers, speaking of cartoonists! Palestinian Mohammad Saba’aneh is one, and he’s been locked up in an Israeli prison from time to time. You know who pointed this out in the context of “The March of the Parisians?” Jon Stewart. Apparently, he had a whole episode about the anti-Muslim bullshit circualting around these events, as well as the hypocrisy of various peoples and countries.

But let’s be clear, Craig. Muslims have a rational motive for hating Zionist Jews; unlike Europeans who believe in deranged, antisemitic conspiracy theories, Zionist Jews have actually viciously attacked Arabs, stolen their land, and hold hundreds of thousands in an apartheid state with open air prisons.

Without remotely justifying the attack in the kosher Paris store; this is not Dreyfus continued. Something rational is behind it.

What I find disturbing in articles such as this one is not the defense of free speech no matter what, but rather the sort of leniency towards Dieudonné, who’s not only a documented antisemite, but also associated himself with neo-nazis whose intentions regarding the near future in Europe are very clear: civil war and the mass murder of muslims and jews.

Let’s be very clear: I’m not trying to defend the french conception of “free speech”. But north-american writers should nonetheless try to understand that some things cannot be legitimately accepted in countries that have had a very dark history of state antisemitism and participation in the jewish genocide. That history, whether we like or not, has left deep scars.

Side note: apparently, Dieudonné has recently converted to Islam but he’s not very vocal about it. From my perspective, it is very odd to define him as a muslim comedian, because this never really had anything to do with his activism.

Thank you for highlighting this. It’s interesting that I haven’t heard a peep “free speech advocates” at many of the mainstream outlets. It seems like they adopt the “free speech is free unless we don’t like you” motto.
On another note, what three sources of information (websites, papers, magazines) would you recommend if someone doesn’t want to be misinformed and deceived.
Best,
J.J.

The Charlie Hebdo attack finally set Valls free to do what he had long dreamed of.
That is option 1.

Following last wednesday’s events, Dieudonné received very credible death threats, which, if materialized, might unleash a small civil war. So, in order not to lose face, considering his previous stances on the comedian, Valls granted him this form of “protective custody”, in which case the charges will vanish as soon as things return to normal, if they ever do.
That is option 2.

Interesting take. Personally I think the French PM felt he had to reassure the anguished Jewish community by taking some strong action, and what better target than Dieudonné against whom Valls has a personal vendetta? But this will blow up in his face because I can’t see the court accepting the blown-up charges. Valls is once again showing his true colors as the left’s Sarkozy. I hope Montebourg beats the sh*t out of him in the 2017 socialist primaries.

PS I intensely dislike Dieudonné whom I once had the misfortune to meet; this was when I was part of a collective that squated the former prefecture in Toulouse, and Dieudonné showed up to steal the limelight. His arrogance, disdain for anyone who was not a television celebrity and indifference to the local reality were astounding. He wasn’t antisemitic back then, but became so when he couldn’t get the funding for a six-hour documentary on slavery. Instead of admitting that he had no documentary-making credentials, he blamed it on the Jews, and ever since he’s been locked into that role as his former public was replaced by a new, revisionist one. Nonetheless, even I have to admit that the tweet he was arrested for was not in any way an incitement to violence and should not have been sanctioned.

a/ his ego : you just have to take a look at his Facebook page to understand how much he thinks everything revolves around him.

b/ the documentary project : I wasn’t there when he went to see some producers to get it financed. I don’t know what they answered (Did they indeed say only the Hlocaust was a subject of interest ?), but he sure blamed it on the Jewish community very quickly. The problem is Jewishness has become an obsession to him, in his online videos and in all his shows since then.

c/ These are trumped up charges (which, by the way, are not “incitement to violence”, but “praising terrorism”), and everyone, government included, knows it. That’s why there might be more to it. You said it yourself : some within the French Jewish community are scared. But others within that same community (the JDL, for instance) have been ready for the clash for a long time. As Dieudonné is a bit of a “tête brûlée” (a hothead), he would probably have accentuated provocations in the coming days, giving Jewish extremists a “reason” to act. What Charbonnier, Charlie’s late editor in chief, said (“I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.”), Dieudonné reiterated multiple times…

Of course I agree with most of what you have said, but I think you have been pretty dismissive of Dieudonne, and your link to his noxious statements provides essentially nothing except another journalist’s opinion. If you have the time, you might be interested in this

As for the “quenelle”, it’s obvious that this gesture can be interpreted any way you like depending on how you form it, which is probably the intention : The ambiguity of the gesture provides a way to express anti-semitism in a secretive way, and this is why people like Levy are so upset. This is precisely the kind of point you have been making about the cartoons so I’m sort of surprised that you have glossed over it.

I believe to characterize Charlie Hebdo as “obsessively anti-Muslim bigotry” is a misrepresentation of what they are. Admittedly, I do not read Charlie Hebdo, but here is the article on which my belief is based: http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/olivier-tonneau/110115/charlie-hebdo-letter-my-british-friends . Furthermore, I did see their cartoon showing a graphic sexual threesome between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which I’d imagine is quite offensive to Christians. So I do believe that they were rather firmly anti-religion rather than anti-Muslim in particular. A lot of their cartoons mock not even Muslims but extremist Muslims, as in the the new Charlie Hebdo cover, where Muhammad himself is shown in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo. The message of that as I see it is that Muhammad would not have approved of the murderers.

Incitement to violence is a crime in many places, and this does not seem in general unreasonable to me, but what seems clear is that the boundaries to the freedom of speech are more subtle than Glenn Greenwald believes (or appears to from this article — I am not a regular reader). I think that the arrest of Dieudonné is a bit excessive, but where that boundary should lie is not immediately intuitively clear. What if he had said he approved of the terrorists? What if he had said to all his viewers “Go and be terrorists”? What if he were at the head of a mob inflaming passion and leading them into murder or lynching (without committing it)? I am sure that many very clever people have thought about these questions, and I do plead ignorance as to their answers, but I believe that somewhere there a line can be reasonably drawn between what should be allowed and what not. The difference is that some speech does incite violence and some does not. Perhaps that Fox news commentator should have been in trouble instead, while Charlie Hebdo cartoons certainly do not incite violence.

I must agree with Mona. I wish the western media had republished the cartoons in solidarity, and I do believe they didn’t out of fear. Islam is an idea and ideas can be wrong. A great way to show that an idea is wrong is to ridicule it to pieces. That is what free speech is for: to winnow ideas. But inciting violence or hate? I do not have the absolute faith of Glenn Greenwald (and I guess many people here) that this is within the purpose of free speech. I do support free speech to a great degree just because I fear slippery slopes. The US seems to be doing alright without prohibitions against hate speech, but it does have some laws against inciting violence.

I recently read a book called the Lucifer Effect. It studies “how good people turn evil.” And it describes an inevitable spiral into evil in Zimbardo’s prison experiment. First you put some people into positions of power over others, then you take the victims and you deindividuate, then you dehumanize, and lo what you you get is torture and debasement and even violence. That inevitability is terrifying, and this makes free speech scary, since if the media conspire (and they can, all being owned by the same guys), they can pick a minority (and minorities are already usually in positions of less power), deinvididuate them (“they’re all the same anyway”), then dehumanize (“they’re just like animals”), and then what you’ll get (inexorably, according to Zimbardo) is evil. Real evil created by free speech. So to sum up, I think free speech is dangerous not because it can be offensive (a rather trivial thing) but because it can lead to dehumanization and persecutions. And then there are also consequences to banning free speech, so free speech, which seems so obvious to many people, seems instead very subtle to me.

Many countries have limits on freedom of speech, freedom of expression etc…Freedom of expression in USA or France or Germany does not allow anybody to demonstrate fully naked in front of the White House, the Assemblee Nationale or the Bundestag. Because of their history some countries do have some limits on freedom of speech. Germany has, in my opinion, a valid reason to limit freedom of speech when it come to Nazi propaganda. Maybe the German society aims at limiting the capability of Nazis to recruit young individuals (even teenagers) because of the great damages they did in the past. The same applies to France when it comes to incitement to violence. However, this is Mr Greenwald in action. As a lawyer he clearly understands that they will be limits to freedom of speech or expression but he has to disregard the validity of these limits to maintain his popularity among his crowd. Mr Greenwald is very good at distorting the truth as well. He attempts to portray CH as an anti Muslim newspaper while CH has history of bashing everybody specifically the extreme right wing party Front Nationale, which has made it clear there is “a Muslim problem” in France.

I have a question for you Mr Greenwald. I doubt you read it the first time because your moderator has not published my comments for awhile. Is it better for the Judiciary to stop a parent who is instilling the idea of violence to his/her child at a young age or to stop the child when he/she is well armed in Syria or Iraq and killing others?

Part of the problem is that many in the modern age have no concept of personal or cultural dignity whatever, and think being gratuitously offensive is a precious part and parcel of the civilized world – so while it is obvious that no one should be punished for non-violently challenging orthodoxies generally, actual loathsome contempt for others (that is indeed felt as such by traditionalists, including the majority of peaceful ones) – can sneak in under this supposedly progressive wire and cause waves of distress in a community.

For many traditionalists across the world, “Oppression is more easily endured than insult” (Junius), and the feeling of being disgraced feels like something almost intolerable – even if this angry resistance to the insult can ultimately be overcome in the average person by calming down and finding some kind of perspective.

For my part, I think it is a shame society has degraded to the point of promoting inflammatory, gratuitous offense at all ( and this is outside the fact that the State will take advantage of this “liberty” as Greenwald points out), but in some ways I’m a very old-fashioned 24 year old.

For my part, I think it is a shame society has degraded to the point of promoting inflammatory, gratuitous offense at all

It has always been thus. People suck. The tragedy and shame is that we have not succeeded in extirpating that impulse in ourselves, despite millennia of “civilization” and innumerable wars over which fairy story gets you through the night.

Very much ‘in training’! My teacher said unless I lose my bad temper I won’t understand anything, and told me to work through my issues with politics with those I respect, and then come back to him. So here I am!

By the way, Zen is a little less precept-obsessed than other forms of Buddhism.

I am very ashamed of my insults of others, if it means anything to you, but in my defense (!) I ‘ve only tried above all else to be honest, and suppressing my temper is probably worse than exposing and undoing it in this way, of which you are a part.

Not really, no; I get insulted all the time and nobody cares, why should you be exempt? “Supernaturalism” insults my intelligence. It belongs in comic books, not public policy analysis. I’m sorry you feel I’m insulting you when I say that but that’s my opinion. Religious beliefs are based on irrational, unprovable assumptions that all too often are self-serving; and religious differences are one of the primary causes for violence in the world. All over which fairy story written 2000 years ago by men long dead you believe to be true. It’s ridiculous.

Sure, quoting the bible will win a lot of non-believers to your side. Sure. Ain’t it great to live within your religious bubble? (where truth and reality is outside the bubble. Maybe the bible should be called the bubble.)

The well-bought up person in me agrees with you. But the thinking person in me says when does liberty become license? Who decides where the line is – a governing body (national or international?), a religion (whose?), a belief system (whose?), gender(whose?), class(whose?), ethic group(whose?) cultural mores (whose?), manners (whose?), a censorship board? Better people learn that one can only be insulted if one chooses to be – that is freedom.

Since the Intercept staff never explains why so many comments are missing, then commentators have to assume that moderators just censor them. None of my comments for the last ten days have been published. I will be surprise if this one gets published.

Not only is there censorship here to speak of, there’s also removal of clean, effective, pointed commentary. At least one of even Glenn’s was removed earlier last summer–somehow, some how–after a short response to the at-least-three-paragraph post. Later, only a weeks ago, wasn’t there also conversation in the threads that another one of his disappeared?

“Removal” of commentary is that on one occasion Glenn deleted his own comment within seconds of posting it. It’s his comment; he’s entitled. At some sites everyone has that option for 10 minutes to an hour. You can at Twitter.

As for others, you have been banned here 3-4 times, and the bonneville account is gonna go too, if your volume of lunacy creeps back up. Rants about the Illuminati, Brother Nathanael’s madness, how Hitler was a leftist & etc., that Occupy is some Stalinist plot blah, blah blah… that shit Glenn tolerates only in limited quantity. You frequently exceed his limits, and no doubt will again.

We know that an in-excess-of-three-paragraph comment of his disappeared minutes after I posted a brief response to it in early summer. That’s 1 right there. Then there was a commotion in a thread a few weeks ago where people were wondering where a GG comment disappeared to.

Then there was an NPR thread in the same summer where a confederate of yours is wailing into thin air at a phantom commentator; then there was removal of TheIntercept.com comment archives (used to prove commentator quotes) very shortly thereafter.

Then there’s Mona, who thinks someone who joins a German Workers Party, then forms a Sozialisten movement, somehow really wasn’t (but was actually convincing conservatives to be “Socialist”)–while she also sees history repeat itself where progressive-leftist descendents yet again attempt to rewrite sympathizer history after the embarrassing fact by claiming that Obama’s “under the radar” gun-control promoting to Sarah Brady, and his workers-permit granting to 5 million illegal aliens, and his partnership with the SEIU on compulsory health care insurance law participation–and his repeated WH meetings with that leadership as well as with Al Sharpton–and Salon’s Joan Walsh’s gushing and singing his praises, and the Guardian’s consistently sympathetic portraits of him, are actually starkly right wing.

I never claimed Occupy was a Stalinist “plot,” or even Stalinist; rather I claimed it was hapless, immature, aimless, vacuous, and socialist.

“No censorship here?” I’m not so sure. I have tried repeatedly to post a link first in one thread, then three times in Jeremy Scahill’s first Charile Hebdo related post – twice to attempt to reply to Bonneville, tnen once as a stand alone post. None have shown up. I just tried to post to Jeremy’s latest post to post the same link, but that hasn’t shown up either, and my reply to Hans, written a bit after that – on this thread – has indeed shown up.

It’s not censorship. There is a certain name I cannot – not even using Tor – post here in comments. Instead of typing “name,” I must type “[email protected]” if I want it to post. This makes no sense, and TI hasn’t done anything to forbid using this name.

In addition, yesterday I tried to post a comment with 3 links again — never saw the light of day.

The commenting software sucks, and Glenn is promising that very soon, wunnerful new replacement comes.

`Mo makes a valid point w/ respect to this archaic commentating software being the culprit. One cannot be 100% sure whether or not posts are legitimately being discarded, but it is of my humble opinion that this is not the case. Having perused Mr. Greenwald’s hallowed-halls since 2010, I can respectfully state that it is a rarity when an individual’s contributions get ‘moderated’ (Although, he has been known to ‘change his mind’ on the rare occasion.. happy face) I can also vouch for the fact that you are also given numerous chances to politely refrain from abusing the privilege before actually getting bounced..

Well, I get that the commenting software is pretty bad, but I still find it VERY strange that none of those posts has shown up – across three different threads. I think the problem with the first two may have been I mistakenly had two links n it. But not the rest. And all were trying to post the SAME link. Did I misspell my e-mail that many times?

If it wasn’t repeated attempts to post the same thing, it’d be much easier to dismiss as just software problems.

“……The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last name was “Coulibaly”)…..”

This was a “kosher” market. Jews were targeted for political assassination, Mr. Greenwald. Coulibaly went to that market for one reason – to murder Jews. JEWS, Mr. Greenwald (just in case you missed that in the news).

“…….It is certainly true that many of Dieudonné’s views and statements are noxious, although he and his supporters insist that they are “satire” and all in good humor…..”

Really? Mocking targeted and murdered Jews is in “good humor”? You cannot dignify hate any better than that.

Interestingly enough, your partner, Scahill, posted an article which also fails to acknowledge the targeting and murder of the Jews in Paris (although he did – probably by mistake – note that the market is “kosher”):

“…….“I support what Umar Farouk has done after I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than sixty years……” (Awlaki)

This is a classic case of blaming the victim – but par for the course for the Intercept. The Intercept has become a propaganda bonanza for Islamic terrorists.

Finally, I have not looked back on the arrests of Dieudonné, but he does not appear to be violent or a threat to anyone. It makes no more sense to arrest him for any of his hate driven rhetoric than to arrest David Duke for his.

Interestingly enough, your partner, Scahill, posted an article which also fails to acknowledge the targeting and murder of the Jews in Paris (although he did – probably by mistake – note that the market is “kosher”):

You Zionist fruitloop, Scahill is reporting on AQAP and it’s taking responsibility for the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices. Since it disclaims any responsibility for the attack at the kosher market, Scahill reported that, too.

The Intercept has become a propaganda bonanza for Islamic terrorists.

You are so unhinged on authoritarianism and Zionism, you literally cannot think straight.

I’m thinking all too clearly. If you don’t want me to accuse you of promoting propaganda then don’t post propaganda – like Awlaki’s heartfelt story of the Palestinians – after a terrorist attack that targeted innocent Jews at a kosher market. Who wouldn’t accuse Scahill of blaming the victim in that case (well, except you)? It’s all in the timing – and they understand exactly what they are writing. That’s the first I have seen by Scahill (I think), but it wasn’t very impressive.

If you don’t want me to accuse you of promoting propaganda then don’t post propaganda – like Awlaki’s heartfelt story of the Palestinians – after a terrorist attack that targeted innocent Jews at a kosher market.

Craig you lunatic, it’s not all about Israel all the time. Scahill is reporting on the AQAP claims, and reports that Awlaki is somehow involved in current events. So, Scahill is reporting what is known about Awlaki in terms of any operational role in anything. WTF else should Scahill be doing, you deluded freak?

Scahill has had a great scoop, but all you note is a quote about Palestine within a very long post that is one of Scahill’s several on AQAP and Paris matters. UNHINGED.

Craig isn’t a lunatic. My guess is paid hasbarist. His schtick is too well honed, too consistent in its method, and too focused generally on a single issue. My guess is he’s paid to post here given the frequency and regularity with which he criticizes almost every single piece by Glenn. He wouldn’t be the first of Glenn’s critics who appeared to fit the bill of paid hasbarist.

“……Scahill has had a great scoop, but all you note is a quote about Palestine within a very long post that is one of Scahill’s several on AQAP and Paris matters. UNHINGED…….”

rrheard is correct Mona. I’m not a lunatic, but as I have told you since day one a couple of years ago, the fringe left is obsessed with Israel. If Scahill thinks that mentioning: “….I [Awlaki] support what Umar Farouk has done after I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than sixty years….” will distract from his broader point, then he shouldn’t mention it, should he? However, I fully believe that this IS Scahill’s broader point i.e., the moral of his story – especially coming on the heels of a targeted attack to murder Jews in Paris. This ain’t rocket science Mona.

By the way, I have asked my Jewish handlers for a significant raise – or I begin to support the Intercept. That should scare ’em!

However, I fully believe that this IS Scahill’s broader point i.e., the moral of his story – especially coming on the heels of a targeted attack to murder Jews in Paris. This ain’t rocket science Mona.

Yes, because rr is wrong: you are unhinged. You are insanely paranoid and obsessed with the notion the Glenn, Jeremy & others are out to get the Jews. Jeremy’s not reporting a great scoop on and from AQAP, no, he’s attacking HEBREWS!!!!!

Even you ought to be able to understand the propaganda emanating from Scahill and Greenwald. It’s constant. In Greenwald’s last article concerning the Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris, Greenwald writes:

“…..In particular, the west has spent years bombing, invading and occupying Muslim countries and killing, torturing and lawlessly imprisoning innocent Muslims, and anti-Muslim speech has been a vital driver in sustaining support for those policies…..”

Islamists attack us for revenge. How many fucking times have we seen that same post by Greenwald even as he ignores the brutality of Muslim on Muslim violence? So when Scahill posts the same BS concerning Awlaki’s opinion of Israel, it is clearly written to promote the same kind of propaganda. It’s Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians which “justifies” the murder of Jews in Paris. It has no bearing whether those particular Jewish people are even Zionists. It’s simply justified because they are Jews. That’s enough. Collective punishment of all Jews is justified. What could be more obvious than that Mona?

Greenwald cannot even bring himself to condemn the attack on the Jews – or even mention that it happened because Scahill and Greenwald think exactly alike on that issue. It’s a little like showing a dead Palestinian teenager at the head of an article while leaving off a dead Jewish infant. It’s pathetic, but he has never done anything to change my mind on this issue.

It has no bearing whether those particular Jewish people are even Zionists. It’s simply justified because they are Jews. That’s enough. Collective punishment of all Jews is justified. What could be more obvious than that Mona?

What is obvious is how unhinged a brain on Zionism is. Everybody with a double digit IQ, Craig, grasps that Muslims have a particular bone to pick with the Jewish state. The State for Jews. The State that says it is for ALL Jews.

This bone does not revolve around bogus Protocols and feverish banking conspiracies. No, this bone has to do with actual attack and land theft, ethnic cleansing, open air prisons and maintenance of an apartheid state, all enforced with a world class military partly paid for by the United States. It has to do with the deaths of 500+ Palestinian kids last summer.

That kind of thing is going to drive a small subset of young (Arab) males to murderous militancy. In the world of young men this has pretty much always been true.

Glen Greenwald articulating the spectrum of violence against a broad swath of humanity and condemning it, rather than picking your “favorites” for special attention, makes him indifferent toward The Jews? Seriously? So, it you don’t select the Jews for special treatment every time violence happens, you are indifferent to the Jews?

Condemning violence includes condemning violence against the Jews as well as violence by the Jews – and every other “special” group. You seem to want to cherry pick and have the position of “the most favored super special category”. Your favorites do not have to be the center of everything!!

Bullshit and a lie. Glenn as been universal, if my memory is correct, in consistently condemning all violence against any innocent civilians anywhere.

What you mean by “shockingly indifferent” is that he doesn’t by into your hasbarist propaganda that requires that if anyone is to be critical of any nation’s (or group’s) actions anywhere then they must be critical of all nation’s actions equally and at the same time. What it also fails to account for is differences in the moral quality of the justifications for, scale/degree and form of violence (i.e. history, imperialism, economic hegemony, political disenfranshisement . . .) and relative power differentials between parties.

You of course are clearly smart enough to understand these distinctions in Greenwald’s work which is why of course your critiques are generally ideologically blinkered pure unadulterated illogical hasbarist bullshit.

And if you were at all a moral and honest interlocutor on this subject you would understand that notwithstanding the fact there is “plenty of blame to go around” for the I/P conflict, it is Israel that seems capable of justifying any amount of Palestinian revenge or “security enhancing” deaths for every single Israeli killed. In fact Israel has killed Palestinian civilians at a rate of about somewhere between 7 and 15 to 1 for every Israeli “civilian” killed (although this is a bit of a misnomer since the vast majority of Israelis are/were active IDF members or reservists).

What Israel is doing, and has been doing to Palestinians for decades, is cowardly and morally repugnant. Israel is under no ‘existential threat’ from anyone in the Middle East (or any group of Middle East nations) so long as America is in its corner and Israel possesses the atomic bomb. And that reality will continue until such time as Israel has alienated the entire world because of its actions, with the American people falling last naturally as we did with South Africa’s apartheid regime.

So the question becomes, when will the nation of Israel stop shitting its pants (at a threat that is lower per year to Israeli civilians than Americans dying due to their cars striking deer (since 2000–78 Israelis (civilian/military combined) on average die per due to the I/P conflict while 200 Americans die per year striking deer with their cars)), give back some of what they stole, and stop bombing the living fuck out of a defenseless people with no organized military who “fight back” against Israel’s actions with homemade weapons and rocks?

It’s a compliment for you to refer to me as a “paid hasbarist”. After all, Greenwald is a paid “hasbarist” for issues that are important to him.

“……What you mean by “shockingly indifferent” is that he doesn’t b[u]y into your hasbarist propaganda that requires that if anyone is to be critical of any nation’s (or group’s) actions anywhere then they must be critical of all nation’s actions equally and at the same time…..”

I didn’t bring up Israel in my comments. I brought up “Jewish” people – the ones targeted for murder by Islamists. They were – as I keep saying – targeted for one reason – and that is because they are Jewish. There is a difference between Israel and Jews. Some Jews may not be Zionist and many Jews don’t support the policies of Israel in Gaza or the West Bank. Targeting all Jews for the policies of Israel is collective punishment and despite what Mona says – is unsupportable. We would certainly not support the murder of Muslims in Indonesia (or anywhere) for the creation of Kosovo.

What made the actions by the “comedian, Dieudonné” so offensive was by supporting the murderer, Coulibaly, he specifically supported the targeting and murder of Jews – which had nothing to do with mocking the prophet.

Greenwald never even mentioned that Jews were the target of the murder by Coulibaly, even going so far to mention how:

“….[Dieudonné] his supporters insist that they are “satire” and all in good humor. In that regard, the controversy they provoke is similar to the now-much-beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoons (one French leftist insists the cartoonists were mocking rather than adopting racism and bigotry….”.

Dieudonné (the “comedian”) was not mocking anything. He was supporting murder. Where is the humor? Greenwald is not only callous and indifferent toward the murder of Jewish people, he is calculating. This same argument can be applied to Scahill who did what is a chicken-shit way of addressing an issue for Intercept staff. He hid behind a quote by Awlaki (an advocate of murder of a Seattle cartoonist):

“…….“I support what Umar Farouk has done after I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than sixty years……” (Awlaki)

Of course, this represents the most cowardly of inferences – blame the victims.

It’s a compliment for you to refer to me as a “paid hasbarist”. After all, Greenwald is a paid “hasbarist” for issues that are important to him.

“……What you mean by “shockingly indifferent” is that he doesn’t b[u]y into your hasbarist propaganda that requires that if anyone is to be critical of any nation’s (or group’s) actions anywhere then they must be critical of all nation’s actions equally and at the same time…..”

I didn’t bring up Israel in my comments. I brought up “Jewish” people – the ones targeted for murder by Islamists. They were – as I keep saying – targeted for one reason – and that is because they are Jewish. There is a difference between Israel and Jews. Some Jews may not be Zionist and many Jews don’t support the policies of Israel in Gaza or the West Bank. Targeting all Jews for the policies of Israel is collective punishment and despite what Mona says – is unsupportable. We would certainly not support the murder of Muslims in Indonesia (or anywhere) for the creation of Kosovo.

What made the actions by the “comedian, Dieudonné” so offensive was by supporting the murderer, Coulibaly, he specifically supported the targeting and murder of Jews – which had nothing to do with mocking the prophet.

Greenwald never even mentioned that Jews were the target of the murder by Coulibaly, even going so far to mention how:

“….[Dieudonné] his supporters insist that they are “satire” and all in good humor. In that regard, the controversy they provoke is similar to the now-much-beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoons (one French leftist insists the cartoonists were mocking rather than adopting racism and bigotry….”.

Dieudonné (the “comedian”) was not mocking anything. He was supporting murder. Where is the humor? Greenwald is not only callous and indifferent toward the murder of Jewish people, he is calculating. This same argument can be applied to Scahill who did what is a chicken-shit way of addressing an issue for Intercept staff. He hid behind a quote by Awlaki (an advocate of murder of a Seattle cartoonist):

“…….“I support what Umar Farouk has done after I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than sixty years……” (Awlaki)

Of course, this represents the most cowardly of inferences – blame the victims.

“investigators concluded” is the problem.
“I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” doesn’t imply mocking of one and support for the other, or support for one and mocking of the other… and certainly doesn’t say either directly.
The interpretation chosen by the investigators (with probable influence by a politician) is laughable.
They are reading into it something that isn’t there.

On a side note, the AP article about his arrest didn’t even include the FB statement (a curious omission) that supposedly (not at all) shows support for the terrorists, but swallowed the conclusions of the investigators hook, line and sinker… just like you Craig.

Your choosing to be outraged at the investigators interpretation of what he wrote makes sense, since what he actually wrote doesn’t justify it… nor arrest.

“……“I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” doesn’t imply mocking of one and support for the other, or support for one and mocking of the other… and certainly doesn’t say either directly. The interpretation chosen by the investigators (with probable influence by a politician) is laughable…..”

Only if you are not a Jew. His history of antisemitism is irreconcilable with your “interpretation”. And his timing was impeccable. Should he be arrested? Not in my opinion based on what I know.

From his comments I’ve seen so far (see above by JLocke), they weren’t anti-Semitic, so his “irreconcilable history” is suspect.
Of course, I haven’t seen or read everything he has done, but the examples offered thus far to support the claim do not do so.

Let’s see the quotes that support your claim.

The guy may be a jerk who isn’t very funny and thus delves into controversial and provocative material for self-aggrandizement, but that again is different than being anti-Semitic.

I appreciate your reply. I’ve copied the opening couple of paragraphs from Wikipedia:

“…….On 1 December 2003, Dieudonné performed a sketch on a TV show about an Israeli settler whom he depicted as a Nazi. Some critics argued that he had “crossed the limits of antisemitism” and several organizations sued him for incitement to racial hatred. Dieudonné refused to apologize and denounced Zionism and the Jewish lobby.[3]

Dieudonné approached Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front political party that he had fought earlier, and the men became political allies and friends.[4] Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson appeared in one of his shows in 2008.[5][6] Dieudonné described Holocaust remembrance as “memorial pornography”.[7] Dieudonné was convicted in court eight times on antisemitism charges.[8][9] Dieudonné subsequently found himself with increasing frequency banned from mainstream media, and many of his shows were cancelled by local authorities.[5][10][11][12][13][14] Active on the internet and in his Paris theater, Dieudonné has continued to have a following.[15] His quenelle signature gesture became notorious in 2013, particularly after footballer Nicolas Anelka used the gesture during a match in December 2013. His recent appearances and videos are often rants in which the “Jewish lobby” and “Israel lobby” are characterised as controlling things.[16]

After Dieudonné was recorded during a performance mocking a Jewish journalist, suggesting it was a pity that he was not sent to the gas chambers,[17] French Interior Minister Manuel Valls stated that Dieudonné was “no longer a comedian” but was rather an “anti-Semite and racist” and that he would seek to ban all Dieudonné’s public gatherings as a public safety risk.[18] The ban on his shows has been upheld by French courts.[19]……”

Clearly Dieudonné is a nutcase with a history of anti-Jewish bigotry. His statement of support for Coulibaly was crass and callous. It apparently reflects his desire to see Jews murdered. Yea, he is an antisemite.

Opinions from others are not “quotes”, and are little better than “investigators interpreted”. The one quote provided “memorial pornography” falls into a similar category as above… jerk.
The guilt by association angle is problematic as well.
The illegal Israeli territorial expansionism, the ethnic cleansing to make space for settlements, and the propaganda campaigns to justify it all do bear a striking resemblance as well.

If he was convicted 8 times, what did he say that led to those convictions?

And again, repeating the “interpretation” as a “statement of support” doesn’t make it true. Nor your conclusions about it.
And since you admit that you don’t think he should have been arrested for his recent comment, I have to question the previous legal proceedings. Maybe even you wouldn’t think they were justified.

I can be convinced, but not by you being convinced.

Personally, so you understand where I’m coming from, I see Israel as a fait accompli… a done deal… so railing against Zionism is for the delusional.
However, I do denounce the proponents of Greater Israel, settlements on Palestinian land contrary to law, other Israeli policies and the actions of the Jewish lobby… all of which harms both America and Israel in my opinion … and none of that makes me anti-Semitic.

Anyone who kills because they are offended by something should be killed IMMEDIATELY in retaliation. Plain and simple. That goes for Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc. All this other nonsense you’ve written is fine and dandy if it isn’t immediately preceded by a MASS KILLING. The MASS KILLING negates all your arguments.

Dieudonné himself explained his statement as meaning “I am a satirist (Charlie) but also often accused of bad things (Coulibaly)”. That is not incoherent. The French authorities are basically prosecuting him not for support of terrorism, but of saying something that could be (mis)interpreted as such.

He’s an awful guy but his arrest for this one is shameful and I’d be very surprised if the court doesn’t throw the case out.

The Nazi publication Der Sturmer, edited by Julius Streicher, was notorious for its obscene anti-Semitic caricatures.

Imagine if a pair of Jewish brothers, distraught at the death and destruction that had befallen the Jewish people, barged into the newspaper’s offices and murdered members of its staff.

Would we hold up as martyrs and heroes those who chose to mock the deeply held beliefs of a suffering and despised people; to degrade, demean, insult and humiliate Jews in their hour of trial, when the world they had known was disintegrating around them?

Imagine if a million Berliners turned out to mourn the political pornographers.

I have never read a more compelling and intellectually indisputable article in my life. You have opened my eyes to the disgusting and ever horrifying realisations of the oppressive nature of the Muslim community at the hands of our world leaders. Witnessing the socialisation they are forcing on people that hating Muslim people is okay is despicable and they need to be put in their place and held accountable. In years to come this whole Muslim repression will become, in its own way, the next holocaust. Innocent lives lost at the hands of leaders who deem them unworthy.

The main issue that is raised by the attack on Charlie Hedbo is self-censorship, and therefore freedom of speech. Dean Baquet, for example, decided not to publish the CH cartoons, even though he considered them newsworthy, because of safety concerns (as well as a general unwillingness to offend Muslims). The point of publishing the cartoons in “solidarity” was for publishers to encourage each other to rise above this (reasonable) fear. Greenwald argues that the solidarity action wasn’t really about freedom of speech because no one calls for solidarity when an antisemitic or Muslim speaker is persecuted or prosecuted for their speech.

The key point is that Greenwald is denying the significance of the distinction between fear of violence and fear of other consequences that cause self-censorship. From the previous column:

But there are all kinds of pernicious taboos in the west that result in self-censorship or compelled suppression of political ideas, from prosecution and imprisonment to career destruction: why is violence by Muslims the most menacing one?

That should be the main argument, but Greenwald is further insisting that the distinction between violent and non-violent consequences is really a cover for anti-Muslim bias, and this is made clear by his reading of Douthat, Chait and Yglesias. They are explicitly defending CH because of the deadly attack against it, and Greenwald insists on using this as evidence of bias:

In fact, Douthat, Chait and Yglesias all took pains to expressly note that they were only calling for publication of such offensive ideas in the limited case where violence is threatened or perpetrated in response (by which they meant in practice, so far as I can tell: anti-Islam speech).

So, on this occasion when eight journalists were murdered (by Muslims), and US publishers are fearful of publishing the images that provoked the murders, Greenwald is choosing to make the issue anti-Muslim bias rather than self-censorship and freedom of speech. That’s the difference between the Greenwald of today and 2006/7.

Is consistent application of free speech principles essential to freedom on speech? Yes. But the only way to show that the CH solidarity advocates are being inconsistent is to challenge the violent/non-violent distinction. And to do that it isn’t necessary to accuse them of bias. It really comes down to the question of what constitutes “self-censorship” and what are its main causes. That is, if one is primarily concerned with freedom of speech instead of protecting Muslims against bias.

Margaret Sullivan wrote today about Dean Baquet’s decision not to publish the new Charlie Hedbo cover. She had this to say about his previous decision not to publish the cartoons:

Mr. Baquet made a tough call, which included safety concerns for Times staff, especially those in international posts. (Those concerns are far from frivolous; just days ago, a German newspaper’s office was firebombed after it published the cartoons following the attack, and now new concerns have arisen about reprisals.)

You comment seems to presume that Muslims do not have to fear violence. The West has has had no issues condoning and perpetrating, at the state level, violence against the Islamic world for the last 60 years (more likely the last 1300).

The crux of Mr. Greenwald’s argument is condoning speech that singles out one social group while condemning speech against another is /not/ free speech, merely a confirmation and perpetuation of existing bias. Though there may be an issue of self-censorship, there is also a very cynical double-standard as demonstrated by Dieudonné’s arrest.

“That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.”

I think you have far less evidence than you may think to publish such a generalisation and I predict this opinion of yours will have very little credibility among reasonable people. Think of an opinion or an idea and you will find Facebook groups, organisations, and even political parties in the “West” who support it and discuss it freely.

To call Dieudonne’s views noxious is an understatement. This is a man who promotes the most vile conspiracy theories against the Jews, links them with the French establishment, and thus creates a dangerous atmosphere which informs opinions of people like Coulibaly.

“[The march] (to call it a celebration is an ugly and unjust spin on the event) was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support – at least as much.”

I think you intentionally confuse approval of their right to write an anti-Muslim message as approval for their anti-Muslim message. Again this is your opinion, unsupported by even one shred of evidence in your article. Their messages were also anti-Jewish and anti-Christian which you fail to emphasise with as much vigour.

“western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop?” A false equivalence. Saying something is justifiable is quite different from glorifying a terrorist or his actions, and more so different if the glorifier is a public figure with a criminal record for promoting and inciting hatred against a disfavoured group (which you belong to Mr. Greenwald but seem to disfavour).

““Shock and Awe” slogan signifying an intent to terrorize the civilian population”
Signifying that according to your own opinion to help drive your point. It could also be interpreted as terrorizing the terrorists.

How real is the “Nazi” allegation about the “quenelle” anyway? Reading Wikipedia it sounds to me like it’s more a variation on the old American hand-on-raised bicep gesture for “fisting”, and I’m not inclined to take a French prosecutor’s word for anything right now.

Agreed. The quenelle is just the French version of the “up-yours” gesture used in the US and UK. There is nothing anti-Semitic about it and the likening of it to a Nazi salute is just the work of the Israeli propaganda agents.

Among Dieudonné’s followers and companions, there are the real anti-Semites, and there are those who simply oppose the establishment.

The latter take selfies of themselves making the ‘quenelle’ gesture in all kinds of places. In their case, it means “fuck the system”.

The former tend to focus on locations where said gesture, if interpreted as the president of a French organization combating anti-Semitism and other forms of racism (always in that order) means it to be, is indeed hurtful to the Jewish community, for instance in front of the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp, or in front of the Jewish school where, in 2012, madman Merah shot two kids and their father at point blank, all while filming the “event”.

So, it all depends on the interpretation and the context…

That said, as, in France, everything has to be black or white these days, the system only allows the second interpretation, namely that of a (don’t laugh) “fist inserted deep inside the dead bodies of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust” (end of quote) – A. Jakubowicz, president of the LICRA

As a result, a few kids caught making the gesture at school were expelled for a few days. Others lost their jobs because of it. And there’s even a Jewish group (led by JSS News founder J. Simon-Sellem) which, after breaking into Dieudonné’s computers, contacted the employers of all those of whom they found a “quenelle” picture.

I’m feeling sorry for you, man. I gave this man a rational answer to his question, without taking sides.

Now, tell me : which Jew, in my comment, do you find most sensitive ? The one alluding to the Holocaust victims with these words : “fist inserted deep inside the dead bodies of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust” ? Or the snitch ?

I actually do sympathize with your point. When my oldest was in 6th grade, he caught on that his parochial school teacher was fixated on (virtually non-existent) Satanic cult worship among teens. As a result, I got quite a few calls along the line of: “Mrs. Holland, Christopher is drawing ‘666’ and Pentagrams all over his notebooks. Skulls as well. What are we going to do?!”

Several times I told her that the more she made an issue of this, the more she’d see it from him, and that I was absolutely certain my son was not a practicing Satanist. She wanted him to see a priest, which I was totally certain would only amuse him. (Christopher took a lot after me.)

Kids get the notion that certain words or symbols drive the adults bonkers, and that then becomes their favorite thing to say and write. the adults react as expected, and the cycle repeats itself.

You just told him you didn’t believe in all that BS, because you were a “soft atheist”, right ?…

There are a few stories about kids attending black masses, though. Some even wrote about it.

Defrocked priests wearing red capes, half-naked women yelling as if possessed, their menstrual blood flowing on the pentagram, and the altar boys in the middle. That’s how Rosemary’s baby was born, isn’t it ?

This a video of Breaking the Set, where Abby Martin talks about 2,000 killed in Nigeria, during the same time period.Nigeria’s leader ignored this killing, while sending his condolences to France.The very fact that el-Sisi FM posed with leaders of ‘free’ West, should be enough to clue you in.

But, the real message is in the words of Chris Hedges, which takes up most of the show.It is not a matter of ‘free speech’, but of grave economic injustice.Listen to him, and remember those images of night-time fires, burning just outside Paris, in those Stalin-esque ghettos, where Muslims were rioting, a couple of years ago.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYnf6KfEroE

A leading Turkish daily on Wednesday printed excerpts from the first issue of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo since Islamist gunmen killed 12 people in an attack on its offices, defying a growing outcry in the Islamic world. […]

Along with a Charlie Hebdo editorial about how it would not give into the attacks, the excerpts in Cumhuriyet included cartoons satirising Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram and IS.

Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Utku Cakirozer described the printing of the four-page pull-out as a display of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, recalling that several reporters from his paper had been murdered in the past.

“We took care to show the maximum respect for religious sensibility and freedom of belief in our society, not just among Muslims, but Christians, Jews, and those who don’t believe,” he told a news conference in Istanbul. […]

Although a small group of Islamist students earlier protested outside the Ankara offices, there were no reports of unrest so far.

The French leftist letter about Hebdo is way the hell more convincing than the other link to properly contextualize, and the left really needs to stop this kneejerk shit as it will only bite them in the ass down the line. I suppose thanks for including both points of view.

However, Greenwald is absolutely right in the thrust of his point. While I do see some consistently minded individuals who have taken the same position on both these cases, there’s also a lot of hypocrisy flying around. Dieudonne is an imbecile who’s comedy doesn’t rise to the level of real satire in the way Hebdo does – his sole, solitary claim to fame is the cheeky way in which he manages to dance around his own bigotry and earn the ire of the French government. So: take away his claim to fame. Government actions are as effective – hell, probably much more so – than guns when it comes to impeding on freedom of speech.

I’m an admirer of GGs generally lucid opinions which is why I’m still disappointed at how his original response to the Paris killings was to make the implausible claim that to publish e.g. anti Israel views would be to invite the same level of threat as to publish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.

I don’t know how you interpreted his original article that way. He was saying that the anti-Israel comics would not be lauded as true bravery and necessary free speech as the anti-Muslim comics have been perceived by western audiences as a whole. He didn’t say that they would invite violence, but rather that they would invite ire for the same people who lauded similar comics about Islam.

Writers at Vox have indeed been bombarded with threats for our Charlie Hebdo coverage. But not one of those threats has come from a Muslim or in response to publishing anti-Islam cartoons. Revealingly, they have rather all come from non-Muslims furious at our articles criticizing Islamophobia. […]

Though we do enjoy a readership among Muslims inside and outside of the United States, some of whom have not hesitated to express displeasure or worse at our coverage of stories such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, none has seen the Charlie Hebdo cartoons as worth sending an angry email or even an annoyed tweet, much less a threat of violence.

Our coverage of Islamophobia has brought a very different response. Articles decrying anti-Muslim bigotry and attacks on mosques have been met with dozens of threats on email and social media.

The most common states a desire that jihadist militants will murder the offending writer: a recent email hoped that Muslims will “behead you one day” so that “we will never have to read your trash again.” Some directly threaten violence themselves, or imply it with statements such as “May you rot in hell.”

Others express a desire to murder all Muslims — one simply read “I agree with maher Kill them all” — also often implying the emailed journalist is themselves Muslim. One pledge to attack Vox writers begins, “Fuck you and any cunt who believes in allah.” […]

Ironically, these threats are typically couched in arguments that Muslims are inherently irrational and violent. Further, threats made with the explicit intention of silencing journalists from discussing Islamophobia are positioned as necessary “defenses” of free speech against the threat of Islam. The people making the threats seem unaware that they are themselves seeking to curb the very free speech they pretend to uphold. […]

More to the point, though, the discrepancy between the kinds of threats that we are supposed to have received for our Charlie Hebdo coverage and the kinds of threats we actually did receive points to larger issues.

The possibility of radical Islamist threats against American outlets has received wide attention; there are media stories, solidarity rallies, and meetings of government officials. […] Meanwhile, the demonstrable and ongoing threats from anti-Muslim extremists — a well-known phenomenon among American journalists who write about Islamophobia or are themselves Muslim — has received next to no attention. […]

That distance between the kinds of threats we are supposed to have received and the threats we actually did is a reminder of how easy it can be to misjudge our own society and its problems.

Any journalist or activist who has written or spoken publicly about a controversial subject will be familiar with the arithmetic of threats and fear. Add the value of speaking out, subtract the costs of silence. Multiply by the likelihood that the threats are empty, divide by the chance that they are not.

In our case, that arithmetic works out. The people who threaten us are crazies and there is no indication that they are representative of any greater whole or are considering doing any more than sending an email. But we are not the only outlet being targeted, and receiving dozens of threatening emails can have a real effect on journalists, even if we suspect the threats will come to nothing.

But I would note that your dismissal is a much easier position to take when you are not the target. And would agree with BenjaminAP that the bigger point the article makes is the discrepancy between the assumptions and the reality they experienced in terms of the feedback they have gotten.

As for Joe’s point re: narrative pushing, are you accusing them of lying about the responses they have received?

But I would note that your dismissal is a much easier position to take when you are not the target.

I’ve been threatened online. Those are not threats.

And I said nothing about them “lying.” I think they are calling communications they received threats, but they are not threats. Threats could be sent to the FBI — I don’t think the FBI would act on those communications.

I know you have. And you have shared some of that nastiness with us here and on twitter. And it was clear from the article that they didn’t post all – nor even, perhaps, the worst – of the threats they received, so I’m not sure how you can issue such an across-the-board dismissal. We simply don’t know the extent of the threats, though I suspect there were some that an editor would be inclined to take a pass on publishing.

And I said nothing about them “lying.”

Don’t take everything on your own shoulders, Mona. Though I chose to address two posters – actually three, since I mentioned BenjaminAP as well – I clearly indicated that I was addressing Joe with that question:

As for Joe’s point re: narrative pushing, …

However, wrt the definition of “threat”, I don’t think Merriam Webster, or any other reputable dictionary, includes the FBI in it’s inclusion criteria for what might constitute a threat. Also, the article bits I quoted above stated:

Some directly threaten violence themselves,

Neither you nor I know what the threats are that are referenced here nor whether or not any specific threat has been forwarded to the FBI or other law enforcement. So opining on it is making assumptions for which no evidence exists that we are privy to and I am baffled and surprised that you are making such assertions.

And it was clear from the article that they didn’t post all – nor even, perhaps, the worst – of the threats they received, so I’m not sure how you can issue such an across-the-board dismissal.

Well then I don’t know how a reader is supposed to assess their claims, if they are going to say they’ve received many threats but not one of their published examples actually is such!

The issue of threats also has enormous free speech implications, and it’s common for partisans to hurl accusations of having committed a threat and to seek sanction — this is big on Twitter. All I’m doing here is taking exactly the same position I do there — that I just took with that #gamergate lawyer freak, Mike Cernovich — as to what actually constitutes a threat. Vox has not published anything that is that.

I’m sorry if I misunderstood your point to Joe as applicable to me. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m excitable on this topic. :)

I think we can agree to disagree on whether or not they received threat. Irrespective of that, the main point was the fact that the *noise* – however one might be inclined to characterize it – was coming from the opposite corner of the ring from that which had been expected.

No, what’s been under attack is Western media on the narrow issue of blasphemy against a specific religious figure. A small, shadowy group of religious fanatics has terrorized the media into self-censorship on that topic. This is not the world’s biggest problem, but it is a problem.

I admit this is surprising. I was under the impression that the people who deem such blasphemy a killing offense monitor every American internet site, no matter how obscure, and employ a rapid response team to issue immediate threats. Perhaps I was wrong.

Nobody here has suggested that the people who punish perceived blasphemy with violent death are omniscient, omnipotent, or great in number. But they don’t have to be, in order to suppress free expression through fear. For people who value free expression, this is concerning. (You may deem the fear irrational, but naturally people are likely to refrain from saying X if there exists some possibility, even a small one, of getting killed for saying it.)

No, because notwithstanding some cowardly types like Dean Baquet, the media has rather broadly published the Charlie Hebdo blasphemy. This is in contrast to ’06 with the Danish Cartoons, when almost no one did. Including a New Guy on the scene who, at the time, thought they should be published in defense of the right to do so. He didn’t post the Danish Cartoons either, and I didn’t want him to — because I was afraid.

Iirc, the New Guy on scene was working @ Salon and, notwithstanding the New Guy’s vaunted editorial independence, they, Salon, may have had something to say about publishing the (rather crude) Danish cartoons. I don’t think the New Guy was the least bit ‘afraid’ of publishing the cartoons … maybe a touch of high overhead, low brow syndrome./

@ gator. It’s a little early in day for Dick Cheney impressions, isn’t it?

Because after the Charlie Hebdo massacre so many people published at least one of the blasphemous cartoons there occurred strength in numbers. This did not happen with the Danish Cartoons, which, again, Glenn did not publish at his private blogspot site, even tho he endorsed that they ought to be published. Nor did I want him to. Big guys with money and protection should have been the ones to go first.

A tenet of three religions, the ten commandments includes the requirement ” Not to take the Lords (for some here lord’s) name in vain.”
Pussy Riot entered a church and were sacrilegious. The right of free speech and the right of being free to worship were not compatible in this situation. The congregation should be able to carry out there faith based rituals without ridicule in their own church. Pussy Riot should have seen that their desecration was wrong, criminal and not “free speech”.
However all the West said was that Putin was curtailing free speech by prosecuting artists.
How free is speech?
Here, it would seem that one must speak with solidarity, by reuttering another’s words or drawings even if one does not agree to them as a sign of how free one is when speaking. That price is too high minded.

Jonathan Turley has a great piece in WaPo examining how schizophrenic and downright hypocritical the French (maybe not others joining in, but absolutely the French) frenzy of #JeSuisCharlie really is.

Indeed, if the French want to memorialize those killed at Charlie Hebdo, they could start by rescinding their laws criminalizing speech that insults, defames or incites hatred, discrimination or violence on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sex or sexual orientation. These laws have been used to harass the satirical newspaper and threaten its staff for years. Speech has been conditioned on being used “responsibly” in France, suggesting that it is more of a privilege than a right for those who hold controversial views.

…

It was the growing French intolerance of free speech that motivated the staff of Charlie Hebdo — and particularly its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier — who made fun of all religions with irreverent cartoons and editorials. Charbonnier faced continuing threats, not just of death from extremists but of criminal prosecution. In 2012, amid international protests over an anti-Islamic film, Charlie Hebdo again published cartoons of Muhammad. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned that freedom of speech “is expressed within the confines of the law and under the control of the courts.”

The fact that millions of ordinary working class French people came out to protest killings – does not make it a ‘sham.’
Here Glenn confuses “France” or the French Government with the people of France. Quite a mistake. People are shut down for free speech frequently in many countries, but shooting people because you do not agree with them? That is what the march was about. I do hope you condemn the arrests in Turkey too, or the flogging of a blogger in Saudi Arabia. Yes they should not arrest this comedian. I doubt they will sever his head from his body with a guillotine however. After all, this is not Saudi Arabia.

The real problem here is that Greenwald is a lawyer and not a social activist who has to perhaps make a revolution in Egypt.

neither the fact that there were millions nor the fact — if it is a proven fact — that they were working class prove nothing about whether they were united under any principle, never mind under anyone’s notion of “free speech”.

if the muslim “extremests” could just criminalize islamophobia or any tastless pointless mocking of anything islam and arrest charlie hebdo, they wouldn’t have to shoot the “journalists” at hebdo.

1) equality (among the members of a society) is the philosophical foundation of justice in that society, which is the necessary condition for true lasting peace in the society, which then allows all the members to be free from persecution and oppression by other members.

2) most people do not understand and/or accept equality as the universal premise about humanity, but want to achieve what only follows that which they have rejected.

thus, the ultimate question is not about the substance (what constitutes equality or freedom or rights etc?) but about the process (what do you do with the majority who do not understand or accept — for whatever reason — the very first principle of democracy?).

seriously? The difference between the newspaper crass insulting and what Dieudonne said, is that Dieudonne is inciting violence. When he says he is ‘Charlie Coulibaly’ he is saying he supports is against the murder of ‘Charlie’ Newspaper but supportive of Coulbaly, who murdered 4 Jews before being stopped. This is not any stretch of the imagination because this is the same man who invented the concept of taking a selfie in front of Jewish community centers, synagogues, etc while performing the nazi salute. The man is a racist. I don’t like the crass insulting humor the Hebdo magazine frequently has (about everyone, not only muslims) but there is a difference between insults (the Hebdo magazine) and expressing support for a hate crime (Dieudonne).

seriously? The difference between the newspaper crass insulting and what Dieudonne said, is that Dieudonne is inciting violence. When he says he is ‘Charlie Coulibaly’ he is saying he supports is against the murder of ‘Charlie’ Newspaper but supportive of Coulbaly, who murdered 4 Jews before being stopped. This is not any stretch of the imagination because this is the same man who invented the concept of taking a selfie in front of Jewish community centers, synagogues, etc while performing the nazi salute. The man is a racist. I don’t like the crass insulting humor the Hebdo magazine frequently has (about everyone, not only muslims) but there is a difference between insults (the Hebdo magazine) and expressing support for a hate crime (Dieudonne).

Matthias, son of Deutoronomy of Gathhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks
“You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering the name of our Lord. And so as a blasphemer you are to be stoned to death.
– Look, I’d had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was: “That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”
– Blasphemy! He said it again! Did you hear him?”

• -Millions of people with smart phones and only one CLUTCH video of 2 gunmen “killing” (of all cops on video) a muslim. Hmm. No blood is even more sketchy. Shit, there was more video from the 1997 North Hollywood bank robbery with the 2 dudes w/ Ak47’s….and there were no smart phones back then!

They are “jihadis” on a suicide mission with no explosives and no suicide “lets see allah” pact. BUT they made sure to forget their ID at the crime scene. Hmm.

• -The police commissioner of Paris and his last dozen underlings have committed suicide in the past year. Hmmm.

• -France votes PRO – Palestine at the UN hearing.

• -France is PRO peace in Ukraine and wants sanctions ended on Russia.

The cartoonists do both anti-israel cartoons and anti-muslim cartoons but have only fired one cartoonists for “anti-semitic” cartoons. Hmm. Hypocritical?

• -The cartoon magazine was practically bankrupt. Now they are being awarded $1 million by the French Govt. Wowza! What a coincidence.

• -Ultimately who does this serve? Follow the money trail. France will be fighting Syria and bombing 100x more muslims in the middle east shortly as a result of emotional reaction to media hype. More cartoons will be published. Anti arab and anti muslim sentiment will increase astronomically. THINK LOGICALLY. Do you play chess? Think about this and dont come back to me and say “We’ll crazy terrorists dont think.” nonsense.

Syria is who’s enemy? Israel.
Who controls the media? Dual citizen Israelis / Christian Zionists.
Who has a history of false flags against their allies? ISRAEL.

LAVON AFFAIR people.

Wake up. Just another LAVON AFFAIR.

BTW – where was all the outrage when Naji Al-Ali was assasinated by Mossad in London? He was a Palestinian cartoonist. Hmm. How quickly people forget.

The problem with Greenwald’s writing and/or logic is that it never really goes anywhere. If the point is to illustrate the “hypocrisy” of the
“West,” fine, he’s preaching to the choir. Ultimately, he’s just criticizing the media coverage of the event, though, not what the event meant to the people of Paris that showed up. As far as I’m concerned, Greenwald, while talking a big game, has unusually small optics.

I think free speech is important (let me repeat that – I think free speech is important), although it’s probably not as high on my list of relative values as it is on Greenwald’s. For one thing, we’ve never had total free speech, and free speech that links a person to possible criminal activity has never, to my knowledge, been 100% protected in that the person expressing such beliefs could feel assured of safety from suspicion from the state. So perhaps I support “free-ish” speech, because functionally that’s all we’ve ever had. But that’s a personal preference.

That said, I do worry about how free speech will play out in a globalized environment. For one thing, our reaction to violence from threatening outsiders seems non-proportional. Maybe I’m just naive, but to me it seems as if the human mind is meant to deal with visceral, sensory information of the type that you see in a shocking new story, not data and numbers. Freedom of speech took a hit in WWI and II and during the Cold War, but all of those were pretty significant threats. They could have gone very differently. Violence from radical fundamentalist Muslims has probably affected Westerners less, in the last decade, than the IRA did during The Troubles. And yet the way this conflict is often framed, many people seem to see it as a veritable War Of The Worlds, with armies of underground jihadists who won’t stop until every last Western man is enslaved and every woman is shrouded in a burka. We all love Ireland now (Yay for Ireland, let’s make the rivers and beer green and get super drunk in silly hats on St. Pattys Day!! We’re all Irish!), so that horror – as awful and life-ruining for many as it was at the time – ended when time and the moment moved on, not in WWIII. But there was another after that, and there will still another after this one, and on and on. If free speech is contingent upon moments in time when everything is perfectly peaceful, it’ll never happen.

Second, while I do not think the West created anti-Western sentiment amongst Islamic groups, the lack of perspective-taking that tends to take place when people do the wide-eyed pearl clutching thing and wonder what is wrong with those people, why it must be that barbaric religion that makes them so backwards – is hard to watch, and borders on narcissistic, to my mind. Again – I am not of the “the West creates terrorists” mentality, I say we have no way of knowing that, but my intuition says it’s not the case – but it doesn’t matter. It’s simply a matter of being equally hard or even harder on yourself than you are on other people, which to my mind is a test of character. And that applies to all areas, including speech.

An addendum to my above comment, since Harris and his philosophy so often come up here – I am not talking about people who simply hypothesize that religion has harmful behavioral consequences. I think the term ‘religion’ should be replaced with ‘ideology’ in those conversations, but while I do have my criticisms of those philosophies I think they are useful lines of inquiry overall. I am talking about engaging in the act of demonization wherein there is an unspoken axiom that certain problems only exist in other societies, as opposed to being human problems that exist wherever you find humans, including our own society. (I think there is a reverse version of this – angel-izing, if you will – where some groups seem to posit that all problems are caused by the West and everyone could go about their holy noble way if exported materialism wasn’t blocking their innate goodness. I think that is also silly, obviously. My point is more that humans behave similarly under similar conditions, because we are all human).

What bothers me most about the “quennelle/Dieudonné” controversy is that, to take the detractors of the symbol literally, it’d mean that a lot of French/Belgian athletes of African and/or Muslim ancestry, are some how racists or pseudo-neo nazi’s or some s–t like that. To me, as a soccer fan, seeing all these players wrongfully be accused, and immediately apologize (like Dwight Howard when he tweeted #FreePalestine and then apologized: “previous tweet was a mistake. I have never commented on international politics and never will” and then, “I apologize if I offended anyone with my previous tweet, it was a mistake!”http://www.thenation.com/blog/180702/dwight-howard-and-freepalestine ), just says to me, that these players don’t have Free Speech and they are not permitted to create their own symbols absent state sanction. They’re apologizing out of fear and marketing reasons, when in fact, they absolutely are not “nazi-sympathizers” and the reason they embrace the quenelle symbol, is the reason they give, which is, it’s a statement of anti-establishment, not to different in form and substance as the black power fists. That’s how I view it and how the proponents and adherents describe it.

Just look at this ridiculousness:

Only after Dieudonné did his quenelle at Jewish symbols (which, deserves criticism), did all his enemies proclaim the use of it, in all instances, to be de facto anti-semitic. So the result is, all these people, with origins in the Banlieues, who are Black and/or Muslim, believe this symbol, and employ such symbol, as a symbol of solidarity, empowerment and f— you to the state, are all stained as racist anti-semites. That’s f—ed up. And yes, if I was any of the player’s agent’s, I’d tell them not to invoke the symbol either.

The chairman of the regulatory commission, Peter Griffiths QC, said in delivering the decision: “Even though we have found that there was an aggravated breach of FA [rules] we are satisfied that when the player sent the tweet on 28 December 2013 congratulating Anelka, in his mind he believed he was congratulating Anelka on what he perceived to be an anti-establishment gesture as opposed to one associated with antisemitism.

“But we are also satisfied of two further factors relevant to his culpability: 1) That he was certainly aware before he sent the tweet that the quenelle gesture was very much associated with Dieudonné; and 2) That he had, by then, acquired at least some knowledge of the controversies surrounding Dieudonné in the autumn of 2013 and that these had included, rightly or wrongly, allegations concerning antisemitism.”http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/19/benoit-assou-ekotto-suspended-fined-fa-quenelle

Did you catch that? The FA acknowledged that the practitioners believed they were using a symbol of anti-establishment, but apparently, the “controversy” around it should’ve put him on notice not to ever invoke the symbol, or, in this case, congratulate Anelka for invoking it after a goal.

Here are a bunch of other very famous players, all French/Belgian and/or of African and/or Muslim background, who have had to apologize and/or face sanction for a symbol they believe to be anti-establishment in nature.

Benoît Assou-Ekotto (starts for Cameroon, born and raised in France, excerpted above, fined 50K GBP and suspended 3 games for congratulating Anelka)

The list goes on and on but it’s essentially Black/Muslim Francophones who consistently are being told they’re racist anti-semites by powerful institutions who lack the moral authority to prescribe such pronouncements.

For once, I am going to accuse Glenn of understatement. It’s even more corrupt than he says.

To begin with, Dieudonné (whom I intensely dislike, having once met him and having found him arrogant and egocentric, and whose antisemitism is beyond dispute) did not tweet anything particularly wrong. “I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” may be interpreted as a self-association with the terrorist who gunned down 4 Jews in Paris, but Dieudonnés own explanation is perfectly coherent: he said he felt like a satirist (that is, Charlie) who was being treated like a terrorist (that is, Coulibaly). And since the public prosecutor KNOWS this explanation, what Dieudonné is being accused of is not “apology of terrorism” but “statement which can potentially be misinterpreted as an apology of terrorism”.

Second, the French PM Manuel Vals has a longstanding grudge against Dieudonné and has acted on it, improperly so in my eyes, as minister of the interior. Now that he is PM he should stand far away from all prosecutions. It seems likely that he is personally behind Dieudonné’s arrest; that would be an unjustified breach of the separation of powers principle.

This is made worse by, third, the fact that the French government is publicly worrying that the recent murders of Jews combined with earlier ones will lead to an exodus of the Jewish minority. They have to show that minority that they mean business in cracking down on antisemitism, and what better target than Dieudonné? But prosecutions should never be made for unrelated political ends. Manuel Vals, however, for all his efficiency is not a man of principle, and I think it is quite likely that this kind of consideration played a role in the arrest.

BUT none of this reflects badly on the marches, in which I participated, which were held in France. It was not just freedom of expression that was being defended. People were conscious they were defending the Republic itself not against one threat but against two: (1) terrorist acts to punish free expression, and (2) any over-reaction to such terrorist acts which would undermine the Republic in other ways (most notably, any coming to power of fascism). Which is why so many people held up signs saying “Fraternité”, or in other ways expressing solidarity with minorities. The marches were not anti-Arab in the least, nor selective.

As regards the firing of the cartoonist Siné by Charlie Hebdo, I have already expressed my belief that this had nothing to do with Siné’s mockery of Jews; it was retribution against his mocking of the Sarkozy family, which was intimately connected to Charlie’s then-chief editor. And I have also already said that this should not be blamed on the later editor, who died last Wednesday, nor on his staff, none of whom were implicated in that instance of press corruption.

France, it should be recalled, may be mostly atheist but it has a Catholic tradition. Do not look for the kind of purity one may find in Protestant countries. And that is precisely why street action is so important. The separation of powers doctrine, as well as the independence of the press, are not always lived up to.

As regards the firing of the cartoonist Siné by Charlie Hebdo, I have already expressed my belief that this had nothing to do with Siné’s mockery of Jews; it was retribution against his mocking of the Sarkozy family, which was intimately connected to Charlie’s then-chief editor. And I have also already said that this should not be blamed on the later editor, who died last Wednesday, nor on his staff, none of whom were implicated in that instance of press corruption.

Thank you for the insight of an actual French person. So many have been jumping to judge Charlie Hebdo based on exposure to a handful of cartoons outside of any context of French politics, culture or even knowledge of the language.

Even that former employee Glenn links to, he’s disgruntled; others report very differently than he does. Charlie Hebdo is crude, but it seems the magazine has simultaneously mocked Muslim religious figures and practices while also strongly defending their rights as immigrants and to civil liberties. To them, this is apparently not inconsistent, and they politically oppose the anti-Muslim fascists in France. They are sympathetic to Palestinians.

I am really leery of imposing an American/UK template over them, whereby Charlie Hebdo becomes the equivalent of our Islamophobic “New Atheists.” Different people, different outlooks, different cultures.

Yes, Charlie Hebdo was (even in my eyes) often guilty of cultural insensitivity, but that was their right, and they were as you say strongly pro-minority. Their main target has always been the far-right Front National.

nicely done…though i’d give more importance to the “anti-overreaction” protestors if they recieved more than a sentence or two in the major press outlets. i agree with their message (especially being in canada after the ottawa shooting) but it’s being aimed squarely at a brick wall.

also, whether you care for dieudonné or not, this whole thing reminds me of jon stewart and his banal obession with right wing media types; few if any people outside of the “choirs” of either ideology would hear about their “offensive” and “dangerous” views if not for someone like stewart or vals yelling “look how noble i am for disagreeing with this awful wretched thing!!!” from the mountaintop of a tv show or political office.

i know of dieudonné through his connection to alain soral, but i doubt many outside of france heard of him before this just i never would have heard about all the inane right-wing ferguson comments on fox/cnn/etc if not for stewart and his ilk.

This artible is biased and wrong. Just wrong. You should be ashamed of saying these things. It s dirty to just use false information to make your point seem real.

Actually the people who act that biased way is the very people who do not share Western values, and the Dieudonné is the perfect example.

The people prostesting his arrest seem to undertand free speech as we do in the West when it defend their ideals – hate the jews for example.

When Dieudonné does an anti semitic sketch or when he says holocaust is just memorial pornography or he says to a jewish journalist that it was a pity he wasnt sent to gas chambers. The muslims in France turn to our western values to give him the right to say whatever he wants, but when we want to apply the freedom and limits of free speech to their hate speechs like praising a murder and terrorism, then we, in the west are biased.

Another interesting thing is that Dieudonné says for a living horriblel things about the Jews, his life is to provoke them, but the only things the Jews ever did against him was to sue him, within the law. No violence, no blood, no death, no hate.

That shows muslims are the problem, not us. Their level of intolerance is just beyond imagination, at least in France. They never use the law or the rules. If anyone says anything they don’t like from non extremists, regular muslims you get violence ( broken doors, cars on fire, property damages on the streets), from the extremists we get last week ( blood, death, hate).

Why can’t they act in a civilized way? why can’t they do like all the other religions and use the law when they feel offended?

We defended Dieudonné’s right to say these horrible things when he got sued by associations.

Free speech means you can say whatever you want as long as it does not lead people to participate in acts that lead to real harm to other people.

When he said he is like the terrorist that just killed so many innocent harmless people, he is not only using his image to defent acts of violence but also saying he agrees with what was done. If he had said something offensive about another point of view or ideology it would have been ok – like he has done for work!

When the cartoonists make fun of everyone, there is no physical harm, no incentive to murder or act in violent ways, except if you are someone who do not think other people have the right to say whatever they want even if it offends you, and the ones who lack that ability are not Westerners as facts have shown.

Well, it’s said discretion is the better part of valor, cindy loo. One should never confuse the right to publish with an obligation to publish (h/t greenwald.).

*Even hath it been said: “Not everything that a man knoweth can be disclosed, nor can everything that he can disclose be regarded as timely, nor can every timely utterance be considered as suited to the capacity of those who hear it.”

This is not, as Glenn would have it, about “crackpots murdering.” It’s about enough extreme religionists threatening to kill, and actually killing, that the global media has been terrorized into not publishing what these extremists consider blasphemous, not even when such a thing is newsworthy. At one time Glenn supported the media’s defending its right to publish this material by collectively doing so.

Empirically speaking, when is it “enough”? Or take me through the process of your Gestalt. When does it become “global”, in your mind? These attacks are extremely rare. Labeling the rare individuals who carry them out a “global threat” swallows Dick Cheney’s insane logic quite whole.

not even when such a thing is newsworthy.

There’s the rub. Most media isn’t afraid of publishing. Publishing has no context. They’re “afraid” of making news about it. That’s the difference. It’s not a story “they” want to tell, and fear for “their” physical safety, rational or irrational, is not the necessary impediment. “The news” is a complex of fears. Glenn published. Glenn told a story.

Numerous violent plots related to the cartoons have been discovered in the years since the main protests in early 2006. These have primarily targeted editor Flemming Rose,[93] cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, the property or employees of Jyllands-Posten and other newspapers that printed the cartoons,[94][95] and representatives of the Danish state.[96] Westergaard has been the subject of several attacks or planned attacks and now lives under special police protection. On 1 January 2010, police used firearms to stop a would-be assassin in Westergaard’s home.[97][98] In February 2011, the attacker, a 29-year-old Somalian man, was sentenced to nine years in prison.[a][99][100] In 2010, three men based in Norway were arrested on suspicion that they were planning a terror attack against Jyllands-Posten or Kurt Westergaard; two of the men were convicted.[101] In the United States, David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana were convicted of planning terrorism against Jyllands-Posten and were sentenced in 2013.[102]

CNN pixelated those Cartoons because it didn’t want its station bombed.

Which is an editorial decision, based on a complex of fears that are not, ipso facto, rational.

I don’t know what that means, but I do know you were wrong when you said: ” Most media isn’t afraid of publishing. Publishing has no context. They’re “afraid” of making news about it. That’s the difference.”

No, it is not. Reread the Danish Cartoon history I published, then consider that 12 people in Paris were just executed, and then read the AQAP announcements Jeremy Scahill has been publishing right here at TI.

Yes it is. Just not by the terrorists. Western Civilization is under attack because our leaders are wetting their pants over not being able to prevent random lunatics from killing a bunch of people; if the voters start wondering what are we spending all this money on if this kind of thing is still happening, the gravy train might end. The entire GWOT is a massive CYA operation so they can tell the public “see, we did everything we could” when those tragedies happen.

The fear is not irrational, it is quite well-founded. But it’s also the price of living in an open society.

Put it this way. Real solidarity involves other cartoonists making editorial choices in line with Charlie. Or in the words of Olivier Cyran, quoting Thomas Deltombe.. “Encoding racism to make it imperceptible, and therefore socially acceptable”.

Our first amendment offers protection from government prosecution, but not from murder. Other laws protect us from murder. The modern concept of free speech, between private parties, is nothing more than a prohibition against murder.

When you publish inciteful cartoons, and people become incited, you should not be terribly surprised.

Why? Do you listen to NPR? People have this sort of conversation all the time here in the United States. It’s also ironic because Adler is saying that people do not really have the conversation (that he himself is having).

Also, why is it hard to imagine Muslim’s having that conversation? Do you mean people who live in the Middle East? If so, do you speak Arabic? If not, then how do you know they aren’t?

It’s not hard for me to imagine Muslims having that conversation. Merely being an adherent of a religion doesn’t disqualify one from being able to have a rational discussion (on issues not directly addressed by the dogma of that religion). And Americans could have that conversation too, if they wanted to. A lot of them don’t want to.

America has always had a lot to teach the world. Unfortunately, recently those have mostly been lessons on how NOT to do things.

Will no go for this.
Dieudonné (now knowed as Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala) is/was (?) an humorist teaming up with Elie Semoun back in the 90′, thus they split for unknown reasons..
Now, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala is running a controversial ‘comic’ show lasting for a couple of years, targeting mainly Jews and blaming France for their colonial years the slavery in French west indies and is now teaming up with a far right ideologist : alain Soral. So Dieudonné has a record.
I am not sure but strongly believe that his point of view, this mix up,has a certain audience. He has an impact on youngster from the former French colonies (West Africa mainly), the youngster being the second or third generation of the Muslim former protectorate (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco), all mainly leaving in the suburbs of the cities. So, taking is voice out of the internet brouhaha, at least for a while (not sure they can actually charge him or detain him for long), it’s a nice favor the French authorities do in order to take this agent provocateur out of the play.

For someone who once thought it was a good idea to publish the Danish Cartoons in solidarity, you sure seem way too resentful of everyone who partook in this campaign. What exactly is your motivation here?

My guess is that he is (rightly) revolted by the grotesque hypocrisy of the hordes who suddenly have discovered the (self-serving) glories of free speech and the right to blaspheme. The French themselves do not, remotely, have a hard on for free speech; it is barely a value for them.

Charlie Hebdo itself seems disgusted with many pouring out in support. One of their surviving cartoonists has said he “vomits” at his “new friends.”

His “new friends” in this case was specifically the right wingers, I don’t think they were disgusted that many poured in support. And besides of the motivations of some people, when free speech becomes a topic celebrated by millions all over the world, it is a good thing, it helps solidify it as a value to be protected and defended, which should help for the other cases that did not benefit of the outpouring of support. You know, like how the American declaration of independence was done under huge hypocrisy due to slavery, and yet later served as inspiration to abolish slavery. Or how the Nuremberg trials created a precedent against aggressive war, even though it shielded the Soviet Union who started the war with Germany by invading Poland. The point is not to use the contradictions/gaps/hypocrisy to undermine the good side of the contradiction, but to make it whole. That is something that I feel Greenwald never understood, and if people were there influencing the declaration of independence/nuremberg trials with this type of denunciation, they would’ve probably kill those events, undermine their moral legitimacy. But I digress…

You know, like how the American declaration of independence was done under huge hypocrisy due to slavery, and yet later served as inspiration to abolish slavery.

If you think #JeSuisCharlie is going to result in anything like the Declaration of Independence or the First Amendment, I don’t really know what to say. It’s really that stupid.

Do you grasp that the French actually have animosity toward free speech, and that for them the value of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons is celebration of their (mandatory) secular culture?

Hate speech laws in Europe are not going to disappear. Draconian strictures on the press by most of those world leaders who piled into Paris to support Charlie Hebdo will not cease. Indeed, these laws are being executed right now; Dieudonne is being prosecuted.

No, the value here is that publications worldwide have reprinted the blasphemous Charlie Hebdo cartoons. I support a movement to break the terror-effect that has silenced the media vis-a-vis such blasphemy since at least 2006. But I see no other merits to the #JeSuisCharlie campaign, and a great deal of hypocritical co-opting for evil ends.

I’m not saying it will result in anything like the Declaration of Independence. That was merely an analogy, to show there is a historical process by which values and principles are realized. At any moment, there may be contradictions, hypocrisy in how societies recognize such values. The point is how solve these contradictions are solved – one “side” will win over the other. It makes no strategic sense in trying to undermine the moral legitimacy of the one side you are for based on the existence of other side.

The Charlie Hedbo was an important moment in the free speech debate. This is the first time in the digital communication, social media era where free speech was debated globally in such a way. I can tell you for a fact that the majority of Brazilians, certainly the younger ones, have not been exposed to such discussion before in this manner. And that matters.

wow…quite a condescending tone considering the previous poster never said anything of the sort.

and i doubt that “secularism” is “mandatory”. banning muslim headwear is draconian indeed, but even those in muslim countries like iran see the niqab and especially the burqa as embarrassing relics. there are also bans on speech favorable to nazi ideology and use of their symbols in many countries. as glenn said, it’s not just secularism, it’s “hate speech is okay if we all hate the same thing”.

Glenn says that the celebrations last week were not at all about free speech. But he is wrong. It may be true that the leaders, the media were being hypocritical about it. But the undeniable fact is that the event spearheaded a sincere debate about free speech, a debate that Glenn himself is taking part.

And there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the majority of the common people who expressed their support, even if their support is imperfect, even if they fail to show the same support in other situations. Regardless of this imperfections, when that many people decide to express support for a value like free speech, it is a good thing. If someone strategically wise and is honestly committed to promote a certain value that is not always respected, they should use the moment of affirmation of that value as a tool to advance that value in the other situations; and not do the opposite: use the other situation to undermine the moral legitimacy of the moment of universal affirmation of that value.

To make an analogy, should the legitimacy of the US Constitution had been undermined at the time of its creation because slavery existed, or should slavery be abolished based on the legitimacy of the Constitution?

The debate spearheaded by the Charlie Hedbo attack had a significant impact on the free speech debate here in Brazil, where “leftists and progressives” have a momentum in passing laws curbing free speech and instituting controls over media content. The people pushing for this agenda use the same type of cynical arguments that Glenn uses here: it is all a sham by just closeted bigots to oppress people.

Glenn focuses so much on governments and big media and forgets that the debate about ideas is also carried out by regular people and his ideas help shape public opinion, and not just in the US. He seem to have changed his attitude about defending free speech, including against the PC police. At the very least, he changed his priorities, passing the opportunity to lend his voice to the chorus of expressing the defense of free speech, choosing instead to denounce EVERYONE in the WEST as hypocrites. I really don’t understand what he is going for here. It seems petty, not a principled attitude.

The vast bulk of the stirring “free speech” tributes over the last week have been little more than an attempt to protect and venerate speech that degrades disfavored groups while rendering off-limits speech that does the same to favored groups, all deceitfully masquerading as lofty principles of liberty.

About that he is absolutely right.

But I insist that the blasphemous cartoons should be widely republished as a defensive means for the global media to protect its right to publish blasphemy — especially after 12 journalists/cartoonists were just executed for doing so. The media can and should take measures to remove control of what they may publish from the hands of a small coterie of religious zealots.

But the protests over the massacre have not really been about that issue. They are about infusing more steroids into the war on “terror,” which is to say the war on Muslims and civil liberties.

No, he is not right. What is the “vast bulk” that he is referring to? There were hundreds of articles all over the world, how does he or you know what the vast bulk was all about? What does “rendering off-limits speech that does the same to favored groups” supposed to mean? That the protests were causing criticism of Catholicism/Judaism off-limits? That is nonsense!! Even if that is how French rules work, the protests did not make that so, on contrary, they created the opportunity for people to raise precisely that issue!

I’ll tell you what I witness: a lively debate about free speech, with opposing opinions on: whether there are legitimate limits to free speech, whether the courts should have stopped the magazine’s “excesses” before this happened, whether it is ok to ridicule “disfavored groups”; whether it is ok to make fun of religions, whether this will feed Islamophobia, whether CH is racist, etc etc. That was all over my social media feed. BTW, Glenn was having a debate about free speech to this day in the context of this tragedy. So how can you deny that this is about free speech??!!!

Are there people, government, willing to manipulate this? Of course. But by saying that the protests are “about infusing more steroids into the war on ‘terror’ “, you are inferring about the unspoken motivations and thoughts of millions of people that you or Glenn have not way to know about. I’m not that presumptuous (or, may I say, out of touch). When everybody is having a conversation about free speech, I tend to think that the conversation is indeed about free speech.

“France confirmed on Friday it would allow no street protests against cartoons denigrating Islam’s Prophet Mohammad that were published by a French magazine this week.

“Interior Minister Manuel Valls said prefects throughout the country had orders to prohibit any protest over the issue and to crack down if the ban was challenged.

“‘There will be strictly no exceptions. Demonstrations will be banned and broken up,’ he told a news conference in the southern port city of Marseille.”

It stands to reason that if peaceful protests are banned, some people will, unfortunately, feel compelled to resort to violent actions to express their anger. Additionally, what example is the French government setting, threatening to disrupt peaceful free expression with violence (i.e., break up demonstrations)?

This is not a zero-sum game. One can abhor the arrest of Dieudonné and still carry a “JeSuisCharlie” banner. Let’s not forget that mainstream figures will not hashtag #JeSuisDieudonné because he has only been arrested not murdered for his statements. I disagree with hate speech laws both in the US and in France, where I now live, but the French government has a very large problem. Jewish people have been shot by Muslims here. Schoolchildren have been murdered. The Jewish population is justifiably frightened. I can’t blame them. There is a virulent and murderous strain of anti-Semitism that has infected part of the Muslim population here. Sure, it’s related to Israel’s appalling policies in Gaza and the West Bank but France has supported the Palestinian cause and French legislators have voted to recognize a Palestinian state. The Jewish community in the US may be touchy about operas (The Death of Klinghoffer) but in France they really have something to worry about. When Dieudonné fans those flames, which he does, it is very much akin to shouting “Fire” in a crowded theatre. France has a legal basis for banning his speech which they have done before, not always successfully, as he has often prevailed on appeal. Secularism is a bedrock principle in France. You could say that the Republic was founded on freedom from religion. That is why headscarves had to be banned in French schools as crucifixes and kippas always were.

If Dieudonné confined himself to criticizing Israel he wouldn’t have a problem but he doesn’t. He denies the existence of the Holocaust which was an actual fact. By denying it happened he creates an alternative fantasy that is not just “hurting feelings” but encouraging a sense of paranoia and persecution in the Muslim community that can and has resulted in the loss of life. It’s hard to believe that’s not his intent.

On the other hand, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons punctured a belief, that is, that Muhammed was a holy prophet. Belief, not fact. It was blasphemous in a country that has disavowed blasphemy as a legally actionable principle. That’s why the 2007 lawsuit against Charlie Hebdo collapsed. If the Muslim community here felt that there subsequent cartoons were racist, they had every right to bring another lawsuit and keep bringing them, thus calling attention to their outrage.

Dieudonné (now knowed as Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala) is/was (?) an humorist teaming up with Elie Semoun back in the 90′, thus they split for unknown reasons..
Now, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala is running a controversial ‘comic’ show lasting for a couple of years, targeting mainly Jews and blaming France for their colonial years the slavery in French west indies and is now teaming up with a far right ideologist : alain Soral. So Dieudonné has a record.
I am not sure but strongly believe that his point of view, this mix up,has a certain audience. He has an impact on youngster from the former French colonies (West Africa mainly), the youngster being the second or third generation of the Muslim former protectorate (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco), all mainly leaving in the suburbs of the cities. So, taking is voice out of the internet brouhaha, at least for a while (not sure they can actually charge him or detain him for long), it’s a nice favor the French authorities do in order to take this agent provocateur out of the play.

Hi, French reader here. Dieudonné is not a muslim at all, please correct this as fast as possible, it undermines the article who otherwise is full of truths. Dieudonné says himslef he’s a christian, though before the whole crackdown on him he spoke very little of it.

Hi again, my comment was posted as when I shared the article the title still showed “muslim comedian”. Dieudonné is on a lucrative crusade against the state and the zionist lobby. His whole battle is made of important truths, state oppression, brave stances, and sadly opportunistic choices one can hardly tell if they are made to piss off everyone, make money, or because he believes in them.
Islam and Christianity share a lot of ethical values, solidarity, forgiveness, non violence, and that are the rules he claims to live by.
It’s also a good way for him to kick on Judaism once again by associating 2 of the 3 major monotheist and showing he’d welcome any religion but not judaism because he doesn’t think it holds up to the same values.
Seeing as he frequently presents himself as a christian in his own “newsreport” and jokes on people thinking he’s a muslim, I’ve no doubt that the islamo-christian term is just a cheesy catch-phrase.
I still have an immense respect for the guy as a humourist, and think what the french goverment and zionist lobby has been doing to him for close to 10 years now is outrageous. And listening to our prime minister blab about antisemitic crimes in france and how our nation must stand up against this (close to non existent) evil, while no official speeches were made after the many attacks on Mosques and against muslim people in the wake of the Charlie massacre, and our police still controls brown and black people 6 to 10 times more often than whites clearly shows the double standard and hypocrisi he started fighting against.

I would like to emphasize what Mona mentioned earlier. In Glenn’s previous post, MajorGreek commented that the CH material is in support of extreme secularism, not free speech. That is, CH is concerned with satirizing religion when it might be a threat to the secularity of the French republic, not with free speech as such. Thus the justification for the arrest today is something very different since it can be interpreted as encouraging terrorism.

I think this is all wrong. In the first place, such material in defense of secularity does not appear to be allowed equally across all religions. Islam and Christianity are unlimited targets of opportunity, but Judaism requires care. If so, then this is wrong. In the second place, the comment that got this comedian arrested seems to support equality, a concept just as important as secularity. What can be more equal that “if you attack us, we attack you”?

As do I, and I said so to MajorGeek. S/he and other French people defend blasphemy, the ban on the veil & all that as essential to “fraternite.” They believe this is essential to “Frenchness,” which must be secular.

While I insist on understanding how the French generally see the blasphemy issue, I do NOT agree with them. Aggressive secularism at law is inimical to individual liberty. The issue must be one of free speech, but the French are not particularly interested in that.

“That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many [word deleted], actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.” Says it all. Otherwise, good job, Glenn!

To imply that the entire free speech march was a scam because the majority (out of millions of people!!) is not protesting this case is the exactly the same as saying that Greenwald is a hypocrite for denouncing this case but not joining the march last week. I`m sure a lot of people are hypocrites, many others are ignorant, others are not equally motivated by both situations, but making the assumption that the it was just a huge scam by a huge mass of people is hugely problematic. It also sounds a bit petty.

What is a scam is French *leaders* (including the especially scary Manuel Vals) pretending to care about freedom of speech and at the very same time sending people they don’t like to jail under the new “apology of terrorism” laws.

The millions of people in the march cannot be called “hypocrites” because they are not the ones sending people with unpopular opinions to jail for years after speedy, totalitarian “trials”; but French leaders sure can be described that way.

you mean the one where legal authorities act on the laws written by politicians and their owners? obama, hollande, harper and their ilk have no say in who does or doesn’t serve time? or was nixon pardoned by some judge i’ve never heard of?

It’s not so crazy to think that if speech is to be regulated, it should be regulated by the state and not by random people with guns. Well, it is a little crazy because it means you don’t really believe in free speech.

Then perhaps it’s a mistake to think it was just a free speech march, since it was also a statement in defiance of terrorism. But you have to erase terrorism to have free speech. Hebdo was about free speech but was also anti-terrorism. Free speech allowed them to publish. Terror tried to censor them but it back fired. The big joke is on the terrorists because both IS and AQ now want to boast of this ignorant crime. I assume they both are lying. They practice every other type of sin.

Glenn, thank you for all your work and for your passion. I for one have learned and been enlightened by you over the past couple of years. However, IMHO I think the lawyer in you is getting the better of you. While I believe that you are factually correct in most if not all the arguments that you make, I think you are wrong in appreciating the threat that Islamic extremists present to modern civilization. It isn’t that Chrisian or Jewish extremist are any less threatening or by definition any extremist is less so. It is that Islamic extremist form such large majority of societies around the globe and across all levels of society – from ruling class of Saudi Arabia to the working person in Iran. In EVERY Muslim society, including the most “modern” Turkey, meaningful population of minorities have simply been eliminated – any minority, religious or alternative free thinkers. People who aren’t constitutional lawyers or have to balance more variables than personal purity will often do things and say things less eloquently than yourself or other intellectuals like yourself. However, the threat is REAL and it is coming from how Muslim majority societies choose to treat minority groups (any minority) living within. The fear is as real as the destruction of Rome when a small group of extremists called the Christians took control and humanity was set back for 1,500 years. You’re absolutly correct that how the western society is dealing with the threat is stupid, unsustainable and a total failure. However, my advice to you is that you use your soapbox more intelligently to help save the modern civilization from another religious extremist movement in less then two thousand years.

What is missing from headlines major news headlines like “French comedian arrested for inciting terrorism is context” is the context. By now all media clearly state that Dieudonné has been arrested for posting ““Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” But only one has noted the context.

Greenwald, together with the link to his previous piece, has the courage to write these articles which at the very least should stimulate intellectual curiosity – which is really what a news correspondent should do. When I read it with an open mind, I do not see favoritism to one religious group or another, but rather some high-level observations on perhaps “freedom of speech” bias that he sees. He may be wrong or he may be right. But that is the gist of stimulating intellectual curiosity and true freedom of speech.

Problem is, with this rhetoric Greenwald is giving comfort precisely to those groups who want to restrict free speech protections, like most of Brazil`s left/progressive movement (which appears is negatively influencing Greenwald`s views lately). This is a moment to double down on the affirmation of free speech that gained momentum with the Charlie Hedbo`s case, not undermine the entire thing.

It seems clear that GG’s views on this subject have changed with time. While I am, of course, the last person to criticize anyone for changing his or her mind, it would be very interesting to hear why GG changed his.

No, it’s just that Greenwald sticks to the concept of free speech, is all. It’s not hard to follow or understand, and we don’t need to invent spooky Brazilian anti-free-speech fumes to account for it. Read the article again; and the former one on Hebdo. He’s utterly on-point about what free speech is, the new, added principle of valorizing any given free speech in the act of protecting all free speech, and how tellingly selective it all is.

I know that he’s actually making more than one point here; is that the problem? Too complex for ya? :)

No, it’s just that Greenwald sticks to the concept of free speech, is all.

In February of 2006, about the Danish Mohammed Cartoons, Glenn wrote: “As I’ve said before, I believe the press ought to publish those cartoons as a means of defending their right to publish ideas free of intimidation and attack.”

He seems to be changing his mind about that, tho he won’t directly address the question.

Moreover, and to my surprise, he recently endorsed expelling a member of Brazil’s congress for the man’s rape insult stated to another member in the context of a report concerning (among other things) rape.

For your information, free speech means that the government cannot prosecute you for your opinions and ideas (exactly what is happening to Dieundone); not that you won’t suffer any consequence from them.

For your information, free speech means that the government cannot prosecute you for your opinions and ideas (exactly what is happening to Dieundone); not that you won’t suffer any consequence from them.

Moreover, if I remember correctly, in Brazil the decision to expel this member of Congress or not was a political decision determined through a vote in parliament. So, nothing to do with free speech or “hate crimes” laws.

It has everything to do with free speech, as well as the voting rights of the congressman’s constituents. To expel him is to deny his constituents the right to choose their elected representative based on his speech.

i’m pretty sure he cited more than one incident in that article. and saying “i disrespect your prophet(s)” is hardly the same thing as “i’ll fuck your ass whether you like it or not, slut”. many places have laws against making threats of bodily harm or death and, ideally, those are fine.

This is a moment to double down on the affirmation of free speech that gained momentum with the Charlie Hedbo`s case, not undermine the entire thing.

This makes zero sense. I am steadfastly opposed to the criminalization or suppression of all ideas – whether from Charlie Hebdo or this French comedian. That’s exactly what I thought in 2000 and 2005 and 2010.

I’ve changed my mind on all sorts of things over the years – Abraham Lincoln said “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday”. That includes the affirmative obligation of media outlets to publish anti-Islam cartoons in “solidarity” (as opposed to because they’re newsworthy”).

But one thing I haven’t changed my mind on is the free speech issues I’ve written about today.

There’s no point in pretending that this last week’s movement was about “free speech” when it so plainly wasn’t.

I’ve changed my mind on all sorts of things over the years – Abraham Lincoln said “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday”. That includes the affirmative obligation of media outlets to publish anti-Islam cartoons in “solidarity” (as opposed to because they’re newsworthy”).

I’d say he’s right. Moreover, though he didn’t say it and might not agree, I do think context matters as well. I certainly don’t think that now is the time to add to the potentially vicious cycle, with all that’s at stake. You may label that Spineless Appeasing Cowardice. Fine. “Hitchensu Akbar!”

At some point, and maybe we’re there now, this will become the global equivalent of shouting “fire” in crowded theater.

How many lives is yet another insulting picture of Muhammad worth? Sure, they have the right. Sure, the right is important — crucial, even. Happily granted.

But only a rigid fundamentalist ignores all context. France can’t, and shouldn’t, ban it — as they do other speech, hypocritically, which is, like, sorta telling.

Hebdo and the moral-panicking, blind supporters they have picked up in droves (aptly ridiculed by that Dutch Hebdonian), might have used their fifteen minutes to explain where they’re coming from and why.

Here’s something more useful Hebdo might have done: Publish, in Arabic, a sober, un-Hebdoian explanation of why the West believes so much in free speech. Including all the hypocrisies, in France, and elsewhere, but really explaining what it is, why it’s important, and all that. Firm, but polite — explaining why “we” do it. A bit about the history of French satire since the revolution, etc.

And invite responses.

And the only satirical cartoon would be something that satirized both their compadres’ death and especially the moral panic of craziness that blew up around them.

And maybe, like, some understanding of how the West has battered and humiliated and exploited the Arab-Muslim world, concentrating especially on France.

Other than that, no art; just words. How’s that for a switcharoo; how’s that for a shock? Wanna really shock? Go serious and empathetic. Maybe link to this to show what the two cultures can achieve together: http://vimeo.com/80222634

Oh, well. Ain’t gonna happen.

There are many options between “cowardly appeasement” and further provocation. This isn’t a schoolyard fight. How many lives should we risk, right here and now, over this? Please do give me a number.

As anyone who’s been in any kind of stable relationship knows, it often doesn’t really matter how “right” either party is. Certainly not how my wife and I approach these things: we deal with the inevitable conflict, irrationalities (shared or not), mistakes, and all that with patience, empathy, and tolerance. Neither of us really cares who’s “right.”

But that kind of approach requires, like I said, empathy — the empathy between peers who are fighting for something more than self. Too few of those on either “side” of this silly, but increasingly dangerous, binary.

Is it just all about narcissism? Or do we really want to live together?

“There’s no point in pretending that this last week’s movement was about “free speech” when it so plainly wasn’t.”

It was about free speech for a lot of people, man! It spearheaded a huge, deep debate about free speech, limits on free speech and so on. It certainly did have an impact on the free speech debate here in Brazil, where “leftists and progressives” have a momentum in passing laws curbing free speech and instituting controls over media content. The people pushing for this agenda were this same type of cynical argument that you’re using – all, it is all a sham, everyone is just closeted Islamophobe and racists. You seem to forget that ideas, debates are not only about the big media, governments, etc. Regular people are also paying attention and you are helping shape public opinion, and not just in the US.

It is ok to change about publishing cartoons in solidarity, but I think you also changed your attitude about defending free speech against the PC police. At the very least, you changed your priorities, passing the opportunity to speak up about that and choosing instead to denounce EVERYONE in the WEST.

While it’s true that the stated purpose of the movement may have been largely impure or insincere, freedom of speech (much like any enlightened principle) can find it’s place in any situation, even if that place is commenting on the irony of the whole situation.

“There’s no point in pretending that this last week’s movement was about “free speech” when it so plainly wasn’t.”

“Seriously?? If it had nothing to do with broader values of free speech and free expression, why did it attract millions of people and the leaders of dozens of countries around the world, when virtually no other cases of MASS MURDER do? And why was it the site of numerous people proclaiming support for free expression, with many others using it to declare a “war against civilization”?”

You contradict yourself.

There’s is truth in what you are saying: anti-hate-speech laws cause self-censorship, and the public outcry was greater than it would have been had, say, the staff of a anti-western newspaper been massacred. But have more trust in the people who say they rallied behind CH for the right reasons.

There’s a perfectly sensible reason why people would rally behind CH and not the comedian: the massacre of a newspaper staff is shocking and – in my limited knowledge – unprecedented in modern times, at least in the west. Police harassment for online speech is, sadly, an everyday event. Rallying behind everyone who is censored online would be a full time job; rallying behind groups suffering massacres is, thankfully, a rare task. Hopefully, someday, there will be mass demonstrations against online censorship, but the fact that that hasn’t happened doesn’t make hypocrites of them all.

“There’s no point in pretending that this last week’s movement was about “free speech” when it so plainly wasn’t.”

“Seriously?? If it had nothing to do with broader values of free speech and free expression, why did it attract millions of people and the leaders of dozens of countries around the world, when virtually no other cases of MASS MURDER do? And why was it the site of numerous people proclaiming support for free expression, with many others using it to declare a “war against civilization”?”

You contradict yourself.

There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the murders generated such outcry and the arrest did not: mass murder of journalists happens extremely rarely (I personally don’t know of any other situation where it happened). Arrests for criminalized speech online happen on a regular basis. So not only did the CH attacks do more damage, they forcaused much more shock. Hopefully people will protest in mass against online censorship, too, but that will likely take a particularly egregious abuse of power before it happens.

In general I wish Glenn Greenwald would take a more sympathetic view of the protesters and take them at their word. Yes, it is true that the protests would likely have been smaller if the attack had happened against a newspaper that most French had strong opinion against or was otherwise perceived to be not on their side, but that doesn’t mean that the same kind of demonstrations wouldn’t have attracted millions.

[Note to comment reviewer: I submitted more-or-less the same comment two days ago and it was never posted to the site. If you still have the original, please post that, my memory of it is that it was worded a bit better. If the problem was with the fact that I’m using a throwaway email account (which I do check for a few days after posting, btw), then I suggest you update your policies to allow throwaway email accounts – surely, in the wake of Snowden’s leaks, your site should support attempts at remaining anonymous online. If the message was simply misfiled into a spam folder, then I just hope this one gets through.]

Hey, Glenn: it was brought to my attention that this dude isn’t actually Muslim. Wikipedia says nothing about it (which is not, as you’d say, “dispositive”). And doesn’t really super-undermine your point, if true.

I haven’t read the article yet; just the headline, but when I posted it on the Book of Face, an actual French Muslim friend of mine made that retort.

1) You argue that westerners – french in this case – love “suppressing ideas they dislike while venerating ideas they prefer” citing an example of a writer fired from Charlie. Yes, Philippe Val fired Siné in 2008, about a sentence regarding French President’s son Jean Sarkozy which, Philippe Val argued as a motive for firing, was “anti-semitic”. But it was Philippe Val, and only him, who thought it was anti-semitic (and some jewish organizations).
Three things to consider :
* Siné argued from the beginning that he was not fired for this sentence but for editorial disagreements with Philippe Val, and that the “anti-semitic” claim was just a red herring for editorial disagreements with Philippe Val regarding Clearstream (and Val could not fire for this reason) ;
* French courts considered Siné was fired abusively (yeah, we have laws protecting against that), that the speech could not be considered antisemitic, that Siné was exercing his right to satire, and Charlie was fined for Philippe Val decision ;
* Philippe Val was named just the year later head of a national radio. The press largely attributed this nomination to a pressure by Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni. He is a friend of both.
So basically, this can only be considered “suppressing or venerating ideas they prefer or dislike” by twisting the fact really hard: this had nothing to do about anti-semitism, and the motive of Philippe Val is, to say the least, questionable.

2) The Dieudonné case is a bit more complicated. He was well-liked until a bad stand-up on french TV where he dressed as a nazi, which made everybody feel weird, and he was criticized for that. It could have been okay, but then he associated himself politically with racists and negationists – for provocation he argued – but it made a lot of people starting to see his stand-ups much more as a political platform than a humorous stand-up. And it went downhill from here. And yes, that didn’t help and he was convicted multiple times for hate speech.

3) It’s true, there is one ex-writer of Charlie Hebdo, that thinks that the newspaper, created in 1968, is now islamophobic since he left. I disagree with him. There are more covers than before about mocking islam, for sure, but there is also a rise of a kind of terrorism that claims to be islamic since 9/11, which made it a perfect opportunity for this newspaper, who ridicules all beliefs… to ridicule islamic belief. But looking at covers before 9/11, one could have argued easily that the newspaper was “christianophobic” using the same arguments.

4) Hahaha, that was a good one! Bernard Henri Lévy is not “France’s most celebrated public intellectual”. I have absolutely no idea where does that comes from. He is often ridiculed (Botul / the rice bags / Desproges etc.), and is largely more considered a public figure than an intellectual — although I guess he would love to be considered as one.

5) Basically, you misinterpreted a lot of facts to claim that free speech in France is not really free speech. And it’s true. We have anti-negationist laws, we have hate speech laws etc. and I’m against most of those, so I could easily support your case. But the examples you chose to illustrate your point are real bad, and it seems like you just wanted to do french bashing.

As a Jewish guy, with barely any relatives left due to the Holocaust, I know there is close to a zero percent chance that Greenwald will ever defend Jews even one hundredth as much as he defends Muslims.

As a Jewish guy whose few relatives that do still exist are suffering from antisemitism right now, I know that Glenn Greenwald will never be in my corner.

If something offends Muslims or Islam, Greenwald will pounce on it.

If something demonizes Israel, Greenwald will almost always support it.

If something harms Jews, Greenwald will either whitewash it, or go silent on it.

What is missing from headlines major news headlines like “French comedian arrested for inciting terrorism” is the context. By now all media clearly state that Dieudonné has been arrested for posting ““Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” But only one has noted the context.

Greenwald, together with the link to his previous piece, has the courage to write these articles which at the very least should stimulate intellectual curiosity – which is really what a news correspondent should do. When I read it with an open mind, I do not see favoritism to one religious group or another, but rather some high-level observations on perhaps “freedom of speech” bias that he sees. He may be wrong or he may be right. But that is the gist of stimulating intellectual curiosity and true freedom of speech.

Long ago, I realized to my disdain, that the world is full of hypocrites and if not hypocrisy, then illogical and inconsistent thinking. We are all doomed because most people are morons with limited thinking capacitites who are in the majority and have the power to rule over the rest of us.

I think this argument should be made and it’s fair enough to point out this double standard. But take issue with this:

“Despite the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of themselves performing his ugly Nazi-evoking arm gesture in “solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested and prosecuted for them.”

First, no one has an idea what the reaction would be if Dieudonné were murdered. I can easily make an argument to the contrary since it’s simple conjecture. Speaking of conjecture, perhaps I’ll try a bit of mine own. What are the odds, you you think, that he will be murdered for his statement? Look, arrest, incarceration, sacking from employment all are terrible especially for thought crime. I just take exception to equivalence because everyone knows there isn’t one.

I have plenty of problems with US policy, EU legal restriction on speech, Israeli policy toward Palestinians, but cliaming there would be no outcry for Mr Dieudonné when we don’t really know is unfair. On top of which I think we can confidently say his life is not in danger in France, I think that’s a salient distinction.

Glenn, perhaps it is the word “solidarity” is getting in the way. I insist, as you once did vis-a-vis the Danish Cartoons, that the blasphemous (of Mohammed) Charlie Hebdo cartoons should be widely published to make clear that Western media will not be terrorized into self-censorship of “blasphemy.” (Jeremy Scahill has documented that AQAP cites — repeatedly — blasphemy against the Prophet, not racism, as the “reason”” for executing 12 people.)

Do you believe that media should collectively defy terrorist attempts to prevent the publication of materials deemed blasphemous?

Glenn, perhaps it is the word “solidarity” is getting in the way. I insist, as you once did vis-a-vis the Danish Cartoons, that the blasphemous (of Mohammed) Charlie Hebdo cartoons should be widely published to make clear that Western media will not be terrorized into self-censorship of “blasphemy.”

Should French journalists run around making Dieudonné’s Nazi-inverted arm salute, and expressing solidarity with the Paris shooters, to show they will not be terrorized into self-censorship by the French state?

Definition of blasphemy includes insulting “sacred” things. It appears that this was an insult against a sacred symbol – i.e. Mr. Dieudonne’s actions fall within the definition of blasphemy. Perhaps the solution is to narrow the definition to suit the argument? Or, should Mr. Dieudonne file a lawsuit while he rots in jail?

Race, religion, culture – it’s merely a pragmatic choice of the best wedge to create an us vs. them scenario. All human societies define themselves this way. As Condoleeza Rice stated, ‘we need a common enemy to unite us’.

Leaving aside the argument over what speech should be legal or acceptable and what shouldn’t, how can you possibly think that blasphemy against some imagined god does not hurt the people who ardently believe in it, and does not then play a role in stoking the fires of bigotry against that group of people? How do you think Christians in this country would react if cartoonists started putting out images that mocked or ridiculed Jesus? How would Jews react if cartoonists put out images mocking the torah, Moses, etc.? Do you think they would not immediately scream anti-semitism and try to get those cartoonists fired?

One has to recognize that along with free speech comes the responsibility of recognizing when things that you say or write are going to be hurtful to someone, and could result in backlash against you, and could also result in actual physical harm to the group you attacked by helping to turn them into the hated “other” as was so effectively done to German Jews in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I chafe when I see the cartoons of that era which mocked Jews and helped create stereotypes that, to some extent, live on to this day (as someone who is Jewish, this is something I know from firsthand life experience).

As an anecdote to provoke some critical thinking, I remember how much I loved Polock jokes when I was in high school. The stereotypes they created left me believing that Polish people were really stupid. They became “the other” to me because of those jokes. Then I went off to a college that happened to have a high percentage of students who came from Polish immigrant families. A number of them became my fraternity brothers. I quickly learned that those jokes were (a) not true and (b) very hurtful to them. They were no longer “the other”, but my brothers, my best friends and some of the hardest working, smartest, most amazing people I had met. It was a powerful lesson for me. Just as it was being only the second Jewish brother in the house and seeing how my example helped to destroy the stereotypes many of my brothers had about Jews. Because just as I had never known people who were Polish before, they had never known anyone that was Jewish.

In situations like that, you learn that living together in harmony requires understanding and sensitivity towards others and knowing what hurts them, particularly when they are a minority within the group. It seems to me that the same thinking should apply when it comes to blasphemous imagery and commentary.

How do you think Christians in this country would react if cartoonists started putting out images that mocked or ridiculed Jesus?

You mean like Piss Christ? Or perhaps you mean The Last Temptation of Christ? Or maybe you mean the play Corpus Christi? Then again, you could have in mind the mockery of the Last Supper in the movie M*A*S*H?

Blasphemy is a violation of a mere idea. It does not insult the attributes of a people, the way racism or sexism do. It is fundamental to a liberal collectivity that ideas may be criticized and even mocked.

Mona: It is every bit as fundamental to a liberal collectivity that the attributes of a people, as well, may be criticized or even mocked. Or any other damn thing we choose to criticize or mock. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the only distinction you’re (unwittingly) drawing between blasphemy and racism/sexism is that the latter offends you but the former does not. That happens to be how I feel about them, too, but the free expression of any idea is equally deserving of our defense.

Or any other damn thing we choose to criticize or mock. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the only distinction you’re (unwittingly) drawing between blasphemy and racism/sexism is that the latter offends you but the former does not.

Racism and sexism offend me, it is true, and blasphemy does not, that is also true. But that is not the distinction I make. Rather, I remove blasphemy from the category of “hate speech.”

But I ardently believe that both blasphemy and hate speech ought to be protected speech.

Some people can be as strongly attached to their religious identity as to their racial identity or sexual identity or their nationality, or even more so.

For example, race is an artificial human construct which has little or no scientific basis. Historically, we have used certain physical characteristics to define a particular group as a race. In actuality, all humans share the same basic genetic traits, and the distinctions we make are essentially arbitrary. In the US, due to the history of slavery, race has a special emotional resonance. An outsider, unaware of context, could easily assert that racial stereotypes were simply funny, and that since race was a ‘mere idea’, no one should take offense.

A person’s religious beliefs can define them. You have a right to mock those beliefs, but should not be surprised if you stir up strong emotions. Many wars have been fought for religion. Mere ideas can be quite powerful.

In the US, due to the history of slavery, race has a special emotional resonance. An outsider, unaware of context, could easily assert that racial stereotypes were simply funny, and that since race was a ‘mere idea’, no one should take offense.

It is empirically demonstrable that some people have very dark skin and negroid features. Hating people for such things is to hate them for physical traits, and is irrational. It is empirically demonstrable that some people are female, and that some people couple with their same-sex. These are facts.

The idea that invisible daddies inhabit the sky is irrational nonsense, and no fact; a mere idea that I am free to dismiss as nonsense. Notions of what the invisible daddy wants humans to do, or not do, ha ve been a source of enormous conflict and harm, all based on mere assertion.

People are free to worship their respective invisible daddies. But other humans are free to strongly criticize those evidence-free beliefs, even to the point of ridicule and mockery. Our human world has been, and still is, strongly influenced by these irrational beliefs; it is not wrong to put them up to harsh criticism.

For some people, skin color may be fundamentally important. For others, it may be their most deeply held religious beliefs. Properly insulting them requires study on a case by case basis. You are glibly assuming that your own values are universal.

Sure, since after days of trying to get you to answer mine, you finally have.

There is no global fear of publishing Nazi salutes because of terror threats. Films, plays etc. depicting this are not under attack. So no, no one needs to publish Nazi salutes in “solidarity.”

By contrast, since at least 2006, the global media has been terrorized into not publishing blasphemy against a particular religious figure. More than 20 years ago, a novelist had to go into hiding for writing what was also deemed to be blasphemy against this figure.

Maybe some outlets have not published the cartoons because they just find them distasteful?

You say there is no global fear of publishing Nazi salutes because of terror threats, and that might be right, but there is global fear of publishing Nazi salutes because of having your career ended or even having to face legal action.

Should French journalists run around making Dieudonné’s Nazi-inverted arm salute, and expressing solidarity with the Paris shooters, to show they will not be terrorized into self-censorship by the French state?

I’d like a yes or no, please, or an explanation why one can’t be given.

If you don’t think there is extreme self-censorship going on as a result of these kinds of prosecutions, try going into a Muslim community in the west and asking if them if they feel chilled in their speech.

as one person said below, “blaspemy” can allude to anything deemed offensive to any ideology. for example, if you don’t think the israeli narrative hasn’t reached the status of “sacred” for many westerners then this must be your first time reading greenwald. ditto for anyone who dares to insult the “great god” of capitalism or our “saintly” troops.

but then i could just chalk this up to internet semantics and stop caring.

The French do not, remotely, stand for free speech. This isn’t news, and you and I have both had contempt for them on that ground since forever. For them, the value of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons is the celebration of BLASPHEMY. Whether you understand it or not, their whole knot of “liberte, egalite, fraternite” is founded on extreme secularism with a deep suspicion of religious claims. (As a people and state, they aren’t even consistent in this, but the leftists at Charlie Hebdo, by all evidence, have been.)

But for ME, the reason to republish the blasphemous cartoons, is because it is a species of speech that ought to be free, like many others species, including hate speech. Fuck the French — the issue is whether we — you and I and others — are going to let murderous fanatics all over the globe deny us the right to publish blasphemy.

Blasphemy against someone else’s god is an act of provocation. In other words, it is an attempt to create an enemy.

That’s not the only possible interpretation. The publication of the cartoons can be interpreted as an assertion of freedom in the face of a threat to that freedom:

[Flemming] Rose wrote the editorial which accompanied the [Danish] cartoons in which he argued there had been several recent cases of self-censorship, weighing freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam, so he thought it was legitimate news story. ~Wikipedia

Mussolini:

I’m not sure why everyone seems so surprised when the attempt succeeds.

Surely you don’t mean that Charlie Hebdo was attempting to provoke a deadly attack against itself.

Surely you don’t mean that Charlie Hebdo was attempting to provoke a deadly attack against itself.

I have no knowledge of what they intended. They certainly have a right to create enemies by insulting whomever they wish. However, the old adage about choosing your friends carefully and your enemies even more carefully, does apply.

The role of the state is to protect the citizens against those enemies. It pains me to admit the state sometimes fails. However, by increasing its powers of surveillance, monitoring and policing, it should be possible to rectify this situation. The problem is that some people don’t trust the state with these increased powers. But how can people be free to insult whomever they like (in a manner the state approves), if the state cannot properly protect them?

Core of the problem is not blasphemous cartoons ,it’s just an exaggeration. The Islamist radical think that Sharia law should be implemented world wide and censorship of blasphemy is just part of their struggle.

For someone who once thought it was a good idea to publish the Danish Cartoons in solidarity, you sure seem way too resentful of everyone who partook in this campaign. What exactly is your motivation here?

Is reposting what many take to be racist, incendiary shit in this current context the sole way in which to show solidarity? That, and, of course, the holy hashtag. I thought GG was doing just what you suggest — solidarity with the principle. He’s just not getting on board with re-tweeting (or otherwise re-disseminating) what he takes to be racist trash or joining in the moral panic and fake, cheap Insta-bravery and epic hypocrisy that has settled over the land like fetid stench.

He’s carving out his own position, defining what he means and why. Takes more than a hashtag or tweet. Frankly, I happen to agree with him. I know, I know: he’s a cowardly appeaser. Whatever.

People. in human affairs, just as in science, there is usually more than one variable flying around.

Or, as my old prof used to say, “There are two, and only two, kinds of people in the world: those who constantly set up mutually-exclusive binaries…and everyone else.”

Those who want things simple are at least living next door to fundamentalism. Which I’d say is irony except that it’s exactly what should be expected. Rigid minds need each other to feed off of, just as they need mirrors in which to bask in their own reflected glory.

As Orwell noted somehwere, it’s the grammaphone mind that is the problem, not which particular record is playing at the moment.

It’s hard to disagree with the general thrust of this post. I agree with this part in particular:

“Perhaps the most intellectually corrupted figure in this regard is, unsurprisingly, France’s most celebrated (and easily the world’s most overrated) public intellectual, the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.”

A terrible philosopher. Mortimer J. Adler is much better. Especially his book “Aristotle for Everybody”

Glenn brings up the oft-repeated absurd distinction that anti-Muslim bigots use: “Islam is not a race” but “Jews are a race or separate ethnicity.”

For me this is the single most ignorant argument used by Islamophobes. As Glenn points out, there are caucasian Jews, African Jews – there are Asian Jews – the Jews of China and India most certainly are not the same “race” or “ethnicity” as the Jews of Ethiopia or Eastern Europe.

Jews are NOT a race nor a collective unified ethnicity – yet there is such a thing as anti-semitism. European religious bigotry against Jews in the medieval period INVENTED anti-semitism and RACIALIZED Jews into a separate “other” – transforming Jews into one undifferentiated indistinguishable mass embodied with certain physical/cultural/social stereotypes we are all familiar with – regardless of the fact that Jews are in fact a racially ethnically culturally diverse group of people. That’s the nature of all types of bigotry-to erase distinctions, complexity, humanity, individuality.

The reason that critics like Glenn and others push back against bigotry of Muslims is that is very clear what we are witnessing: the RACIALIZING of Muslims into a separate “other” – regardless of the fact that they are a racially, ethnically, culturally diverse group of people. We are seeing the same process occur before our eyes over the last 2 or 3 decades.

Bigotry is bigotry. And any rationalizations to explain double standards are not worthy of any respect whatsoever.

Absolutely. Scientifically speaking, there has long been consensus that there is one human race. Anyone making an argument such as “Islam is not a race” is being misleading, or hasn’t followed the last few decades of modern science. The term “racism” is a sociological one and is applicable to anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bigotry, just as much as anti-African bigotry. African humans are no more a separate “race” from Europeans than are Jews and Muslims separate from “whites”.

“Genetically speaking, studies have shown that there is much greater genetic variation within a given human population (e.g., Africans, Caucasians, or Asians) than between populations (Africans vs. Caucasions), indicating that human variation cannot be subdivided into discrete races.

It is history, not science,that reveals how the concept of different human “races” arose, how the term has become widely misused, and how it continues to pervade our planet. In fact, the word race has come to symbolize the division of humanity into segments, divisions that often lead to conflicts. Over centuries, people have used the word to divide us into black, white, yellow, red, and other distinctions in order to fulfill selfish goals and objectives. Whether those goals were to subjugate various groups of humans, deem them inferior or simply discriminate against them, the reality is that billions of people have been directly affected as a result of the misuse of the word race.

The end result, in its extreme form, has led to a plethora of existential crises such as segregation, slavery, violence, wars and genocides. One classic example is the dehumanization of millions of Jewish people by Germany and other European nations during the 1930s and 40s, and the colonization and slavery of Africans by European and North American nations is another. ”

To me these distinctions seem vacuous. As practiced by the Nazis or even by society at large, the Jews were stigmatized for Jewish ancestry. Converting to Christianity did not get anyone a ticket out of Auschwitz or a place in a non-Jewish American college fraternity. But the feelings of modern anti-Islamic speakers are almost entirely ideological: they are more than eager to take up the cause of a Coptic Christian or even a Zoroastrian so long as the person himself doesn’t look up to Muhammad. While, yes, there are some ignorami who will simply look down on Arabs in general, they aren’t representative IMHO. So yes, neither Jewish nor Islamic religion is a race, but a belief anyone can change — though this is a contentious statement in the case of the latter, as you are defending the right to apostasy, something that can draw the death penalty even in “non-terrorist” Islamic states. But the targets of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiments are on one hand a race, and on the other a religion.

Defining Jewishness is complicated. It’s a hot topic in Israel. Perhaps many of “the world’s Asian, black, Latino and white Jews” will be distinguished as merely descendants of converts, and not truly Jewish. So in that sense, maybe there is a Jewish race. But it’s arguably an increasingly exclusive one ;)

“free speech”, is probably the most important cultural gap there is between the USA and France. Until now, it wasn’t such a problem, because without social media, there wasn’t really any way for many peoples to use free speech.

Good luck launching such a debate in France. Chomsky was labelled as a fascist here in France for having a first amendment advocacy point of view.

We have nothing like the first amendment, neither in our constitution, nor in the french culture. :(

The Republicans must be the only ones who still believe that Obama wants to close the Guantanamo torture camp, so they are drawing on the Paris shootings to argue that the innocent people held in Cuba by Obama should not be released:

“At a news conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Ayotte argued the administration’s increased clip of transfers was dangerous because it could allow detainees to re-enter the terrorism fight, citing the recent terrorist attacks in Paris.

“It’s one thing to make a campaign promise,” she said, “but if you look at the security situation that we’re facing around the world right now, now is not the time to be emptying Guantánamo with no plan for how and where these individuals are going to go, no assurances of security of those who have been released.””

I love this part “ if you look at the security situation that we’re facing around the world right now…”

Apparently violence anywhere in the entire world, including among French people in Paris France, constitutes “the security situation the US is facing”, and is cause for America to continue to hold prisoners, kidnapped abroad, tortured, held without trial, indefinitely.

Pleased to see Levy getting the zetz from Glenn. I have always found him, as the French say, insupportable. Pompous and utterly infatuated with his own BS. Never was so happy as when that famous French satirical provocateur (forget his name) gave him the” entarte” (i.e. a cream pie in his smug kisser). First time I’ve had occasion to comment on Gleen since his Salon and Guardian piece. Keep the great (if lonely) work, mon ami!

Some here would have Mr. Dieudonné file a lawsuit! Dismiss the irony with statement of nuances. The capricious enforcement of an rules is the definition of tyranny. As difficult it is to face for our friends from the left and the right, it is not just France, it is right here at home as well.

Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred – other than because the force of law is being used to control political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim world) is done by, rather than to, the west?

States have an interest in regulating speech.

Some speech can even be criminal. (Fraud, slander, incitement come to mind.)

However regulating ideas through the regulation of speech is like regulating sugar intake by regulating Big Gulp containers. It cannot be effective and even if it can be effective, it imposes such a burden on individual liberty that enforcement must become either comical or tragic. (See loosies for example.)

Ideas will somehow seep through the words no matter how repressive the State becomes.

The several millions of people who demonstrated against the attack on Charlie Hebdo speak far more loudly than a few lunatics who think they can control ideas through killing those who express those ideas (a more extreme example of State criminalized speech).

If I was scoring the radicals, I’d score the CH attacks a resounding defeat while scoring the subsequent arrest of a persistent advocate a huge success.

several of those “millions”, i’d safely guess the majority of them, spoke nothing but empty rhetoric and vapid slogans. mostly it was a typical display of the western ideal of “look how righteous and good i am when the media tells me to be”.

as for “lunatics who think they can control ideas through killing those who express those ideas”, that’s just too easy to ridicule and i have standards to maintain.

Those who demand equal rights should not accept rights that are unequal.

If the the utterance of a word is a crime, what is the thought? If this magazine can publish articles which are toxic to some groups why are the groups not allowed a retort. Just because someone does not agree with a point of view it does not make that view wrong.

Can you get the Arabs to leave the poor Hebrews alone? They’ve finally gotten a place to live of their own, so they shouldn’t be bothering you anymore. The ones you haven’t killed can just go there. Perfect for everybody.

I would like to think that the absence of any US political leaders at the Sunday Paris march was because the US was aware of how hypocritical it would have been to have participated. Too bad that’s not the case.

In terms of Dieudonné’s arm gesture being “obviously Nazi-evoking,” I think this article published by Diana Johnstone (before any of this Charlie Hebdo stuff happened) is at least worth considering. Dieudonné has clearly done a number of tasteless and offensive things, but I don’t know if this gesture is one of them, and he doesn’t seem to deserve to be linked with the Nazis:

On his recent tour of French cities, videos show large, packed theaters roaring with laughter at their favorite humorist. He has popularized a simple gesture, which he calls the “quenelle”. It is being imitated by young people all over France. It simply and obviously means, we are fed up.

To invent a pretext for destroying Dieudonné, the leading Jewish organizations CRIF (Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France, the French AIPAC) and LICRA (Ligue internationale contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme, which enjoys special privileges under French law) have come up with a fantasy to brand Dieudonné and his followers as “Nazis”. The quenelle is all too obviously a vulgar gesture roughly meaning “up yours”, with one hand placed at the top of the other arm pointing down to signify “how far up” this is to be.

But for the CRIF and LICRA, the quenelle is “a Nazi salute in reverse”. (You can never be too “vigilant” when looking for the hidden Hitler.)

As someone has remarked, a “Nazi salute in reverse” might as well be considered anti-Nazi. If indeed it had anything to do with Heil Hitler. Which it clearly does not.

The Prime Minister Manuel Valls made an impassioned attack on the comedian in the National Assembly on Tuesday. He called him a “peddler of hate and said there should be no confusion between the ‘impertinent’ satire of Charlie Hebdo and ‘anti-semitism, racism and negationism’.”

There is “confusion” about what is the difference between some of Charie Hebdo’s cartoons which are undoubtedly, in my mind racist, and some of Dieudonné comments, which again in my mind, are unquestionably racist. So I think that highlighting the hypocrisy of holding a march for one while prosecuting the other is a valid critique.

– PARIS — French Jews, already feeling under siege by anti-Semitism, say the trauma of the terrorist attacks last week has left them scared, angry, unsure of their future in France and increasingly willing to consider conflict-torn Israel as a safer refuge.

– PARIS — Last week’s terrorist attacks without doubt set all of France on edge, but the sense of wariness, even siege, has grown increasingly profound among France’s Muslim population — the largest in Europe — which seems braced for a potential backlash, both political and personal.

I don’t think the problem is “Islam’s incompatibility with the west” any more than in the 30s it was “Judaism’s incompatibility with the west”. I think the problem is France’s bigotry towards minorities, all minorities. They’ve been ashamed of, covered up their Nazi collaboration, AND their colonial war crimes.